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THE RISE AND GROWTH OF 
AMERICAN POLITICS 

A Sketch of Constitutional Development 



BY 



HENRY JONES FORD 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1898 

All rights reserved 



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177G3 



Copyright, 1898, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 




W COPIES RECEIVED* 



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f » #J. J Gushing & Co. - Berwick & Smith 



V-i'^Hj *u i- -...;■■ .^ 



Norwood, Mass. U.S.A. 



THE RISE AND GROWTH OF 
AMERICAN POLITICS 



•;&&& 



PREFACE 

The purpose of this work is to tell the story of 
our politics so as to explain their nature and inter- 
pret their characteristics. Consideration of ques- 
tions of public policy or of party issues does not 
enter into the plan, and they are referred to only 
as they have affected the formation of political 
structure ; but in this respect their influence has 
been so continuous that the work presents a view 
of our political history from colonial times to the 
present day. The object, however, has been to 
give an explanation of causes rather than a narra- 
tive of events, so that the reader may understand 
the actual system of government under which 
we live. 

Our politics do not become intelligible until 
they are viewed as an offshoot from English poli- 
tics, and the growth of the variety is studied with 
regard to the characteristics of the stock. This is 
the method pursued in the present work, with 
results which, I hope, will show the operation of 
principles of order and progress. "•* 

H. J. F. 

Pittsburgh, Penn. 



CONTENTS 



PART I 

ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 



I. Colonial Methods . 

II. The Political Ideas of the Fathers 

III. The Conservative Reaction . 

IV. The Restoration 

V. Class Rule .... 



PAGE 

I 

17 

34 
45 
59 



PART II 

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

VI. Setting Up the Government . 

VII. The Origin of Parties .... 

VIII. The Ruling Class Divided . 

IX. Political Force 

X. Democratic Tendencies .... 

XL Establishing the Machine 

XII. The Nationalizing Influence of Party 

XIII. Democratic Reform .... 

XIV. The Veto Power 

XV. The Presidency as a Representative Institutior 

XVI. The Convention System 

XVII. The Transformation of the Constitution . 



72 
90 
106 
121 
130 
141 
150 
162 

*75 
188 
197 
208 



vm 



CONTENTS 



PART III 



THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 



CHAPTER 

XVIII. 


Instruments of Rule . 


XIX. 
XX. 


The Congress 

The House of Representativ 


XXI. 


The Senate . 


XXII. 
XXIII. 


The Presidency . 
Party Organization 


XXIV. 


Party Subsistence 


XXV. 


Party Efficiency . 



PAGE 
217 

221 

239 
256 

275 
294 

325 



PART IV 

TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF AMERICAN 
POLITICS 



XXVL Political Ideas of Our Times 
XXVII. The Political Prospect 
XXVIII. The Ultimate Type . 



334 
354 
365 



APPENDIX 



Direct Participation of the Heads of Executive Depart- 
ments in the Proceedings of Congress . 



3*3 



INDEX 



397 



THE RISE AND GROWTH OF 
AMERICAN POLITICS 



PART I 

ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 



CHAPTER I 

COLONIAL METHODS 

English colonies at the present day do not 
afford a parallel to the political conditions of the 
American colonies at the time of the outbreak of 
the Revolution. The imperial sovereignty is now 
a protectorate which does not interfere with colo- 
nial independence in domestic affairs, and party 
divisions in the colonies take place on issues quite 
distinct from those which agitate English constitu- 
encies. But before the Revolution of 1776, Eng- 
land exercised its jurisdiction whenever it saw fit, 
action being generally for the purpose of binding 
American trade to suit English interests. The 
colonies had to keep agents at Westminster to 



2 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

look after their interests. In such a capacity 
Benjamin Franklin began his illustrious diplo- 
matic career. American politics were merged into 
the general movement of English politics. Colo- 
nists were Whigs or Tories as hotly as in England. 
John Adams tells us : " In every colony divisions 
have always prevailed. In New York, Pennsyl- 
vania, Massachusetts, and all the rest, a court and 
country party has always contended. Whig and 
Tory disputed sharply before the Revolution and in 
every step during the Revolution." 1 

There was, however, very little community of 
sentiment between the people of the various 
colonies. The facilities of travel and intercourse 
which now give a national fluidity to opinion and 
apply a steady corrective to local prejudice, were 
then unknown. Intense antipathies were cher- 
ished by people in one locality against those of 
another. When the colonies assumed the powers 
of states, these prejudices acquired great impor- 
tance. They had to be reckoned with at almost 
every step taken by the Continental Congress. 
With the very beginning of federal government, 
sectional antipathies infused into national politics 
a rancor, some of whose bitterness still remains. 
In a letter written in 1815, when sectional hatred 
had reached a maddening pitch, John Adams said : 
" It sprang from the little intercourse and less 
knowledge which the people of the then British 

1 Adams' Works, Vol. X., p. 23. 



COLONIAL METHODS 3 

provinces possessed of each other antecedently of 
the American Revolution, and instead of being dis- 
sipated by an event so honorable to them all, has 
been cherished and perpetuated for political party 
purposes." 

Colonial society was a copy of English society 
of the same period, a little caricatured. The 
caste spirit was rather more pronounced, for it had 
more to contend with, and hence was disposed to 
emphasize visible distinctions. People were ex- 
pected to dress according to their rank and keep 
their proper place. At the inn, the parlor and 
club-room were reserved for the gentry ; the 
tradesman and his wife went to the tap-room or 
the kitchen. A man's seat in church was expected 
to correspond with his social position. Even in 
New England, whose levelling tendencies were 
one source of the prejudice felt against that sec- 
tion in other colonies, it was the practice to " dig- 
nify the congregation " in the assignment of sittings. 
Common people wore leather and homespun ; gen- 
tlemen put flounces of lace on their. linen, adorned 
their coats and waistcoats with gold and silver 
braid, wore silks and satins, even in such colors 
as red and blue, and crowned the ornate edifice of 
their attire by removing the natural thatch of their 
heads to give place to the crisp volutes and frizzed 
convexities devised by the art of the perruquier. 
When men could dress in such fashion, imagine to 
what monstrosities of elegance the ladies were 



4 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

pushed to maintain the superiority of their sex! 
Brissot de Warville, a French traveller, who visited 
this country soon after the Revolutionary War, 
was astonished at the luxurious fashions and 
costly dress of the ladies, and thought some gowns 
he saw at a party given by Cyrus Griffin, presi- 
dent of Congress, were scandalously indecent. 
Simplicity of dress did not come in until after the 
French Revolution. 

Politics, the organic activity of society in its 
civic character, bore a like aristocratic stamp. As 
in England at the same period, the laws bore 
hardly on the poor and tended to perpetuate dis- 
tinctions between patricians and plebeians. Poor 
Richard's saying, that the borrower is servant to 
the lender, had special point to it in the days of 
imprisonment for debt. The humane reforms, 
which in every civilized country have swept away 
the ancient barbarities of the penal code, were yet 
to be begun. The jails were sinks of filth and 
depravity ; and the whipping-post, the stocks, and 
the pillory were in active employment. The suf- 
frage was closely restricted by property qualifica- 
tions, and when it came to holding office these 
were raised to a point at which only men of wealth 
were eligible. Drinking was the inevitable ac- 
companiment of the transaction of public busi- 
ness of almost every kind and at election times 
liquor flowed in abundance. In New England, 
the town-meeting system produced peculiar politi- 



COLONIAL METHODS 5 

cal methods which bore the stamp of Puritan 
church procedure, but in most of the colonies 
electioneering was carried on as in England. 
Candidates announced themselves in flourishing ad- 
dresses to electors and were expected to maintain 
lavish hospitality. Among the items of a bill of 
election expenses incurred by Washington in 1757 
are one hogshead and one barrel of punch, thirty- 
five gallons of wine, and forty-three gallons of 
hard cider. 

Early in the history of the colonies variations 
from English methods began which eventually 
came to be regarded as American characteris- 
tics ; but Americanisms in politics, like American- 
isms in speech, are apt to be Anglicisms which 
died out in England but survived in the new 
world. The American practice of requiring that 
representatives should be inhabitants of their dis- 
tricts, was an old idea of English politics. An- 
ciently the king's writ, expressly confirmed by a 
statute of Parliament, required that none but resi- 
dent burgesses should be elected to Parliament. 
The law was disregarded and became dead letter 
in England ; transplanted to America it lived and 
flourished. 

The early introduction of the ballot in America 
was likewise the fruition of ideas which in Eng- 
land fell upon stony ground, but which found a 
fair field in the new world. Among the reform 
projects with which the political theorists of the 



6 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POIITICS 

seventeenth century busied themselves, the ballot 
occupied a prominent place. A political tract, pub- 
lished in the time of William and Mary, refers to 
the use of the ballot as being then an old estab- 
lished custom in the borough of Limmington, 
Hampshire ; but this was an exception which 
passed away, and the ballot was not established in 
England until the Australian system was adopted 
in 1872. In the colonies, however, the ballot sys- 
tem took root at an early period. It is prominent 
in the philosophic constitutions prepared for the 
proprietary colonies of South Carolina, West Jer- 
sey, and Pennsylvania. Theoretic considerations 
had probably, however, much less to do with the 
growth of the ballot system than the circumstances 
of colonial life. Before the formal introduction 
of the ballot anywhere, a practice had sprung up 
in Virginia, in the New England colonies, and 
perhaps elsewhere, of sending votes in writing to 
avoid the trouble of personal attendance at elec- 
tions. This practice was suppressed in Virginia 
at an early date, but was methodized into a regular 
system throughout New England, where elections 
came to be known as " proxings " because the 
votes of the freemen were given by proxy by 
means of voting papers. At the time of the 
Revolution, New Jersey and North Carolina, 
which had at one time used the ballot, had 
adopted the English system of viva-voce voting, 
which also prevailed in New York, New Jer- 



COLONIAL METHODS J 

sey, Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia. Voting 
papers or ballots were in use throughout New 
England and in Pennsylvania, Delaware, and 
South Carolina. 1 The ballot, in the modern sense 
of a party ticket put into the hands of voters, 
is a comparatively late development. In 1794, 
John Adams extenuated " a very unwarranted and 
indecent attempt . . . upon the freedom of elec- 
tions " committed by his own party, on the ground 
that " the opposite party . . . practise arts nearly 
as unwarrantable in secret, and by sending agents 
with printed votes." 2 

Party organization, whose astonishing develop- 
ment since the adoption of the constitution causes 
it to be regarded as peculiar to the politics of the 
republic, is a growth from colonial politics, and its 
beginnings were common to England and America. 
In 1769, during the excitement over the famous 
Middlesex election, the holding of mass meetings 
first became a political practice in England, and 
many reform associations were organized. To 
keep up communication with one another they 
appointed committees on correspondence. The 
American Whigs were in hearty sympathy with 
these movements. Before the year was out 
the South Carolina assembly had an angry 
contention with the provincial council, because 
the latter refused to concur in a grant of 

1 Bishop's Colonial Elections, Chap. III. 

2 Adams' Works, Vol. I., p. 474. 



8 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

10,500 pounds currency (equal to about 1500 
pounds sterling) as a contribution to the funds 
of the English Constitutional Society. In 1771, 
Samuel Adams wrote to Arthur Lee, of Virginia, 
— then in London and active in politics there 
as a supporter of the famous demagogue John 
Wilkes, — proposing that committees should be 
formed in the colonies to correspond with "the 
Society of the Supporters of the Bill of Rights " 
in England. 1 Towards the close of the following 
year, the Boston town meeting took the lead in 
banding together the Massachusetts town meetings 
by means of such committees of correspondence. 
Soon after, intercolonial committees of corre- 
spondence were organized under the lead of the 
Virginia House of Burgesses. These committees 
are the lineal predecessors of our state central 
committees. 

Another feature of modern political methods 
which was derived from colonial politics is the 
'caucus. It made its appearance in the politics 
of New England long before the Revolution. The 
historian William Gordon, writing in 1774, says 
the system was in operation fifty years before 
that time. An entry of February, 1773, in John 
Adams' diary, presents a picture whose traits 
are curiously modern. He writes: "This day I 
learned that the caucus club meets at certain 
times in the garret of Tom Dawes, the adjutant 

1 Hosmer's " Samuel Adams," Johns Hopkins University Studies. 



COLONIAL METHODS 



9 



of the Boston regiment. He has a large house, 
and he has a movable partition in his garret, which 
he takes down, and the whole club meets in one 
room. There they smoke tobacco till you cannot 
see from one end of the room to the other. There 
they drink flip, I suppose, and there they choose 
a moderator who puts questions to the vote regu- 
larly ; and selectmen, assessors, collectors, fire- 
wards, and representatives are regularly chosen 
before they are chosen in the town." 1 

In the Middle and Southern colonies, the posi- 
tion of control held by the New England caucus 
was occupied by groups of leading men, the nature 
of whose association was as much social as politi- 
cal. Their influence was exercised in connection 
with the proceedings of the provincial assemblies, 
whose sessions brought on the gay season in the 
world of society. More closely resembling in 
their composition and demeanor the caucus club 
described by John Adams, were the committees of 
safety which sprang up during the Revolution, but 
for lack of such an instrument to work with as 
the town meeting, they had less direct political 
influence and were prone to mere rowdyism. 
Some did such work as Thomas Paine referred to 
in the second of his " Crisis " series of pamphlets, 
when he spoke of the shame felt by all sensible 
men at the tarring, feathering, and carting through 
the streets, of suspected loyalists. 

1 Adams' Works, Vol. X., p. no. 



10 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POIITICS 

During the Revolutionary period, constitutional 
means of popular participation in the conduct of 
government were so undeveloped that party as an 
agency of political control denoted little more than 
a connection of interest among the gentry. Even 
in caucus-ruled Boston, John Adams says that 
three rich merchants, Thomas Hancock, Charles 
Apthorp, and Thomas Green, when united could 
carry any election almost unanimously. He re- 
marks that " half a dozen or at most a dozen 
families had always controlled Connecticut." * 
The course of New York politics was determined 
by the attitude of the great families — the Living- 
stons, the Schuylers and the Clintons. In the 
South, political power depended almost wholly on 
social influence and family connection. Demo- 
cratic activities gave the Revolutionary movement 
explosive violence in Boston, and caused ferments 
in other centres of population which hastened the 
progress of events towards independence ; but the 
urban population was small — not one-thirtieth of 
the whole. There were but four cities in the 
country with over 10,000 inhabitants. Boston had 
a population of about 18,000. The chief city was 
Philadelphia, with 42,000 population. One-fifth of 
the total population of the country was embraced 
within the bounds of Virginia, a colony which had 
no large towns. The mass of the people were 
outside the area of democratic influence. 

1 Adams' Works, Vol. VI., pp. 506, 530. 



COLONIAL METHODS II 

There are still to be found isolated districts, 
particularly in the South, which exhibit to a not- 
able extent the prevailing social conditions of the 
Revolutionary period. One finds among the people 
in a locality of this sort an abundance of political 
prejudice combined with very little knowledge. 
When one seeks the basis of an opinion it is dis- 
covered to consist of popular confidence in the 
local magnate from which it was derived, and thus 
being really an article of faith between man and 
man it is held with peculiar fervor. This relation- 
ship is finely illustrated by an anecdote recorded 
by the Marquis de Chastellux, who visited Amer- 
ica in 1 780-1 782. Governor Benjamin Harrison, 
of Virginia, said that when he was setting out 
with Jefferson and Lee to attend the first session 
of the Continental Congress, his anxiety over the 
crisis was increased by the fact that a number of 
the plain people of the neighborhood waited on 
him and said, "You assert that there is a fixed 
intention to invade our rights and privileges ; we 
own that we do not see this clearly, but since you 
assure us that it is so, we believe the fact." They 
expressed their confidence that he would do what 
was right, and returned to their homes to abide the 
issue whatever it might be, while he went on his 
way with a heavy consciousness of the trust re- 
posed in him. 1 

Such deference by the people must not be taken 

1 Chastellux's Travels, Vol. II., p. 157. 



12 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

to imply any subserviency of disposition. It was 
a necessary consequence of the fact that agencies 
for the creation of an intelligent public opinion 
were not in existence. There were only thirty- 
seven newspapers in the entire country in 1775, 
and they had no regular sources of intelligence. 
Leading men in different localities kept one an- 
other informed of political movements by corre- 
spondence. The political conditions were such 
that as a rule only those in social relations with 
the governing class — that is to say, the gentry — 
were in a position to obtain the information, and 
arrange the concert of action, necessary to the ex- 
ecution of political designs. The men who organ- 
ized the Continental Congress and gave a national 
character to the Revolutionary struggle, who bom- 
barded king and Parliament with constitutional 
arguments, and who finally declared their indepen- 
dence of the British crown, were men of the same 
breed as those who upset the throne of James II. 
The English revolutionists of 1688 called in Wil- 
liam of Orange to depose James II. The Ameri- 
can revolutionists of 1776 called in the French 
power to depose George III from his colonial 
dominion. 

The scheme of taxing the colonies did not origi- 
nate as a party measure. The great increase of 
imperial expenditure on account of the American 
civil and military establishment, caused by the 
French and Indian War, was likely to suggest it 



COLONIAL METHODS 1 3 

to any economical administration. The idea of 
imposing taxes was broached as early as 1739 
when the Whig leader, Walpole, was at the head 
of affairs, but was rejected by that prudent states- 
man. The angry contention in Massachusetts 
over the issue of general search warrants for the 
discovery of smuggled goods, in which James Otis 
distinguished himself, and which John Adams re- 
garded as the first step towards revolution, began 
while the elder Pitt was still prime minister. The 
passage in 1765 of the first stamp act met with 
little opposition in Parliament and was almost un- 
noticed in England. The violent outburst of re- 
sentment in America took English statesmen by 
surprise. 

Although the stamp act was repealed by the 
short-lived Whig ministry of 1 765-1 766, the right 
of Parliament to tax the colonies was strongly 
affirmed ; but moderation and considerateness 
were such habitual characteristics of Whig policy 
that had the Whigs remained in power, means 
might have been found to satisfy imperial needs 
without outraging colonial sentiment. The real 
issue was one of home rule. The colonies had 
become too big to remain in tutelage to English 
politicians. A profound change in their relations 
to the home government would have been required 
in any event to make room for the growing spirit 
of self-reliance and incipient nationality. No class 
of men were less fitted to deal with such a delicate 



14 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN PO II TICS 

matter than the Tories under Lord North, whom 
George III raised to power in 1770 as the instru- 
ment of his personal will, and for whom he pro- 
vided a parliamentary majority by the exercise of 
every influence which the crown could bring to 
bear. Their sole idea of dealing with American 
affairs was to meet colonial resistance with stub- 
born determination. 

The burning interest with which party leaders 
in our own times follow the fortunes of a decisive 
campaign in an important state, affords as good 
an idea as different political conditions will allow, 
of the kind of feeling with which the English 
Whig leaders regarded the struggle of the Ameri- 
can Whigs, but can give no idea of its depth or 
intensity. They believed their party existence — 
nay, the very life of the English constitution — 
was staked on the issue. At the time the Ameri- 
can discontents broke out in open insurrection, the 
Whig party in England was in a dispirited state. 
The spirit of resistance to crown encroachments 
which had flamed so audaciously in the letters 
of Junius and in the diatribes of Wilkes seemed 
to have died out altogether. " England," wrote 
Chatham, "is no more like old England or Eng- 
land forty years ago than the Monsignori of mod- 
ern Rome are like the Decii, the Gracchi, or the 
Catos." Burke declared : " The people have fallen 
into a total indifference to any matters of public 
concern. I do not suppose that there was ever 



COLONIAL METHODS 1 5 

anything like this torpor in any period of our 
history." Junius wrote to his publisher that it 
would be folly for him to write anything more, 
since the cause had become hopeless. The only 
effective resistance to the designs of the court was 
that which came from the colonies. If that was 
broken down, it was the belief of the Whig lead- 
ers that the ruin of English liberties would follow. 
The Duke of Richmond took steps to provide him- 
self with a suitable asylum in France, in case 
American defeat should be the signal of proscrip- 
tion in England. 1 The Whig leaders compared 
the Continental troops to the army of deliverance 
led by William of Orange, in 1688, and with good 
reason. The surrender of Cornwallis gave the 1 
death-blow to the system of personal rule which ( 
the king had laboriously erected, and ended a long 
crisis by definitely setting the course of English 
constitutional development in the ways of parlia- 
mentary government. A still more pregnant con- 
sequence was the establishment of American 
independence, leaving the American Whigs with 
separate political interests to administer in pro- 
foundly altered circumstances which soon caused 
changes of vast importance to human destiny. 

The event was a victory for the Whigs on both 
sides of the water, and was treated as such. Terms 
of separation were arranged without rancor. Nom- 
inally, the American interests were in charge of 

1 Lecky's History of England, Vol. III., pp. 590, 591. 



1 6 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

France ; but the American commissioners, by direct 
negotiation with the Whig ministry then in power, 
obtained greater concessions than France had in- 
tended, as it was not her policy to favor the rise of 
a great power in America. Her intention was that 
the sole navigation of the Mississippi, and dominion 
over the unoccupied Western country, should be 
the compensation which Spain would receive for 
entering the alliance against England. On her 
own account, France was opposed to giving so 
great a share in the Newfoundland fisheries as 
was claimed by the American commissioners. Yet, 
by the aid of their Whig friends, the American com- 
missioners were successful at every point. The 
young nation was accorded liberal fishery rights, 
and territorial claims were conceded which pro- 
vided a continental area in which to expand. 1 It 
was a generous settlement of the family quarrel. 

1 Lecky's History of England, Vol. IV., pp. 278-284. 



CHAPTER II 

THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF THE FATHERS 

The writings of the statesmen of the Revolu- 
tionary period show that they regarded political 
institutions with prepossessions of another charac- 
ter than those which now influence men's minds. 
The world was very different then, and a different 
set of traditions guided opinion. Such concep- 
tions as self-government, the sovereignty of the 
people, the rights of nationality, whose validity 
is now generally regarded as obvious, were then 
innovating ideas which had yet to make their way. 
Rousseau's " Social Contract," which developed 
the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people to 
extreme lengths, exerted marked influence upon 
French thought in the last quarter of the eigh- 
teenth century, but it had no visible effect upon 
English or American politics. The colonists did 
not trouble themselves about speculative concep- 
tions of popular rights. It took practical griev- 
ances to move them, and in their remonstrances 
they had recourse to the laws and constitution of 
the realm. Only when they came to actual separa- 
tion did they fall back upon the abstract principles 
of liberty which are set forth in the Declaration of 
c 17 



1 8 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POIITICS 

Independence. That was a manifesto for a par- 
ticular occasion, and history shows that only slowly 
and by degrees did it come to be regarded as an 
embodiment of principles of government. 

Among the things which make Mr. Bryce's 
great work on " The Holy Roman Empire " a good 
preparation for the study of American history, is 
the fact that it brings vividly to the mind the 
recent origin of the cardinal ideas of our times. 
It exhibits to us a period when the ideas of nation- 
ality, which gradually emerged in Europe after the 
migrations of peoples had ceased, were opposed 
by venerable traditions of legality and civilization. 
To the jurists and reformers of the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries, the development of nationality 
seemed to be a baleful disintegration of the Holy 
Roman Empire. The emperor was the Lord's 
Anointed, to whom kings and peoples owed their 
obedience. Dante did not see how freedom could 
be possible except under the government of an 
universal monarch, who, having no rival to fear 
and no further ambition to gratify, could have no 
motive save to rule in wisdom and in equity. To 
Petrarch, the existence of an imperial jurisdiction, 
coextensive with Christendom, was as obvious a 
necessity as that a body should have a head. In 
language, which reads like a bitter satire upon the 
condition of Europe at the present day, he re- 
marks what a hideous portent would be a creature 
of many heads, biting and fighting one another. 



THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF THE FATHERS 1 9 

The sublime ideal of universal peace and justice 
under the wise providence of a supreme magistrate, 
elevated above the reach of temptation, was never 
held more fervently than during the incessant war 
and political chaos of the Middle Ages. It was 
never absolutely renounced, but its hopelessness 
as a practicable design gradually removed it from 
serious consideration. Its vitality as a political 
principle was shown even during the present cen- 
tury in an astonishing way, by Napoleon Bona- 
parte's efforts to convert the kingdoms of Europe 
into dependencies of his empire. " There will be 
no repose in Europe," he said, " until it is under 
one head, under an emperor whose officers would 
be kings." 1 

At the time of the American Revolution, the 
Holy Roman Empire still preserved a nominal 
existence. In the Federalist, the term " the Em- 
peror" is used as an unique, distinctive title; but 
the old conception of the Emperor as the supreme 
magistrate of Christendom was extinct, and in its 
place the idea of a balance of power in Europe 
had been developed as a practical expedient for 
the control of international relations, while as a 
basis of social order royal authority was solidly 
fixed in public confidence. Political ideas take 
their stamp from impressions received during the 
unfolding of race destiny. During the Middle 
Ages, no other political institution rendered such 

1 Taine's Modern Regime, Vol. I., note to p. 36. 



20 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POIITICS 

service to the public welfare as kingship. It was 
the upholder of justice, the redresser of grievances, 
the guardian of the commonwealth, the conservator 
of the public peace ; it was the shelter of the people 
against the arrogance of the nobles. The substi- 
tution of hereditary succession for election strength- 
ened these functions by placing the crown beyond 
the reach of bargain and intrigue. The change 
established a self-perpetuating national magistracy 
of indefeasible tenure. In the instinctive effort to 
raise up an authority strong enough to counteract 
the disintegrating influences of feudalism, it was 
for centuries the great aim of European jurispru- 
dence to develop regalian rights so as to confer 
upon royal authority the omnipotence with which 
the Roman law vested the head of the state. 
Sanctions of divine right were attached to kingship 
which were originally attributed to imperial author- 
ity alone. Monarchy came to be regarded as a 
part of the natural order of things, the likeness in 
human affairs of God's providence in the universe. 
Popular dislike of individual kings weakened this 
sentiment no more than dislike for a president of 
the United States weakens respect for the constitu- 
tion. Revolts at particular acts of royal authority 
might take place, but the principle of constitutional 
law that royal authority should be supreme might 
not be questioned. The distinction is finely illus- 
trated, with perfect fidelity to historic truth, by 
the sentiment which Dumas puts in the mouth of 



THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF THE FATHERS 21 

one of his famous musketeers. Athos tells his son : 
" Learn how to distinguish the king from royalty ; 
the king is but a man ; royalty is the gift of God. 
Whenever you hesitate as to whom you ought to 
serve, abandon the exterior, the material appear- 
ance, for the invisible principle ; for the invisible 
principle is everything. Should the king prove a 
tyrant — for power begets tyranny — love, respect 
royalty, that divine right." 1 

Popular assemblies, institutions originally com- 
mon to the barbarian peoples who parcelled Europe 
among them, were so much in the way of the execu- 
tive power required by the militancy of the times 
that they were gradually shorn of authority and 
almost suppressed. The historian Taine dates the 
deposit of absolute authority in the French crown 
from the English invasions of the fifteenth century, 
when the life of the nation depended upon the re- 
moval of every restraint upon the ability of the 
king to command at will all its resources. Only in 
a country naturally sheltered from invasion, as was 
England, could parliamentary bodies safely retain 
their authority. At the time when the disaffec- 
tion of the American colonies began, the various 
Continental powers seemed to enjoy conditions of 
security and progress strictly in proportion to the 
extent to which hindrances upon the efficiency of 
executive power had been removed. The Italian 
republics which sprang up during the Middle Ages 

1 Alex. Dumas' Twenty Years After, Chap. XXII. 



22 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

had passed away, leaving odious memories of crime 
and disorder. Venice was in a state of hopeless 
decay. Most of the Swiss cantons had fallen 
under the rule of narrow oligarchies. Poland, 
which had preserved the principle of elective 
kingship originally common among European peo- 
ples, was declining into anarchy. The principle 
of vitality which upheld Holland amid the cor- 
ruption and enfeeblement of the states general 
seemed to be the quasi-royal position obtained by 
the House of Orange in 1749. All the vigorous 
states of the continent were despotic in constitution. 1 
The extinction of means of participation in the 
government must not be regarded as implying a 
sense of oppression among the people. As a gen- 
eral thing they were no more aggrieved by it than 
the residents of the District of Columbia were in 
our own time by the abolition of their legislature. 
The Revolution of 1772 in Sweden, by which Gus- 
tavus III crushed the authority of the Parliament, 
was hailed with joy by his people. The abolition 
of serfdom, the removal of many feudal oppres- 
sions, the betterment of social conditions, and the 
enlargement of liberty of thought were derived 
from the exercise of royal power, while such ex- 
traneous organs of constituted authority as still 
survived were apt to be centres of resistance to 
reform. 2 Voltaire, the great apostle of liberalism, 

1 Lecky, Vol. III., pp. 241, 242. 

2 ThiJ Vnl V.nn TTC-TtK 



•Ibid., Vol. V., pp. 315-31 i 



THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF THE FATHERS 23 

wrote to D'Alembert in 1765: "Who would have 
thought that the cause of kings would be that of 
philosophers ? But yet it is evident that the sages 
who refuse to admit two powers are the chief sup- 
port of royal authority." Again he said, "There 
ought never to be two powers in the state." Lib- 
eral principles of government were in fashion 
among kings until the French Revolution caused 
a violent reaction. 

England presented the example of a monarchy 
of limited prerogative and distributed authority, 
but for a long period before the French Revolu- 
tion, the relative esteem in which France and Eng- 
land were held as regards stability of government 
was almost exactly the reverse of what it has been 
since. It was England that was associated with 
traits of levity and changefulness. Milton, in his 
treatise on " A Free Commonwealth " published in 
i66o 2 referred to "the fickleness which is attributed 
to us as we are islanders," and remarked that " good 
education and acquisite wisdom ought to correct 
the fluxible fault, if any there be, of our watery 
situation." In 1649, Parliament destroyed king- 
ship, only to lose its own privileges under the 
autocratic rule of Cromwell. In 1660, the nation 
restored royalty without conditions. In 1688, the 
king was driven from his throne. During the 
eighteenth century, the turbulence of English 
politics was proverbial. The admixture of popular 
representation with royal authority in the English 



24 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POIITICS 

constitution seemed to be a source of political cor- 
ruption and civic instability. Bribery was resorted 
to without scruple to carry the public business 
through Parliament. The control of the secret- 
service fund went by the name of the " manage- 
ment of the House of Commons." Wraxall, in 
his memoirs published in 1781, remarks that it is 
" a branch of administration unfortunately inter- 
woven with, and inseparable from, the genius of 
the British constitution ; perhaps of every form 
of government in which democracy or popular 
representation makes an essential part." The 
philosopher Hume, in an essay published in 1741, 
points out the tendency to amass authority in the 
House of Commons, with its accompanying pros- 
pect of a tyranny of factions, and concludes that 
" we shall at last, after many convulsions and civil 
wars, finds repose in absolute monarchy, which it 
would have been happier for us to have established 
peaceably from the beginning." The efforts of 
George III to create a system of personal rule, 
which would put the king of England on a level 
of authority with his fellow-monarchs of Europe, 
were given strength and opportunity by a wide- 
spread conviction that a vigorous exercise of pre- 
rogative was necessary to destroy the oligarchical 
power of party combinations and end the reign of 
corruption. Goldsmith, in his well-known poem 
" The Traveller," expressed this sentiment in the 
lines : — 



THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF THE FATHERS 2$ 

11 When I behold a factious band agree 
To call it freedom when themselves are free, 
Each wanton judge new penal statutes draw, 
Laws grind the poor and rich men rule the law, 
The wealth of climes where savage nations roam, 
Pillaged from slaves to purchase slaves at home — 
Fear, pity, justice, indignation, start, 
Tear off reserve and bare my swelling heart ; 
Till, half a patriot, half a coward grown, 
I fly from petty tyrants to the throne." 

Persons of fastidious culture turned for relief 
from the coarseness of English manners to the 
contemplation of French order and decency. 
Hume's letters complain of "the rage and vio- 
lence of parties " in England, and he fondly cher- 
ished the hope of being able to make his home in 
Paris where " the taste for literature is neither de- 
cayed nor depraved as with the barbarians who 
inhabit the banks of the Thames." The historian 
Gibbon deplored the fact that circumstances com- 
pelled him to live in England instead of among a 
people " who have established a freedom and ease 
in society unknown to antiquity and still unprac- 
tised by other nations." There is much in the 
Franco-mania of that period that reminds one of 
the Anglo-mania of the present day. The aver- 
sion which many cultivated persons have for 
American politics, and their admiration for Eng- 
lish models, curiously echo a tone of sentiment in 
England towards France before the Revolution of 
1793- 



26 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POIITICS 

The actual vigor of representative institutions 
in England during this period is complete proof 
of the existence there of an order of political 
ideas counteracting the tendency to exalt royal 
prerogative, dominant elsewhere in Europe ; but 
those ideas owed nothing to democratic sentiment. 
On nothing were men better agreed than that 
democracy meant licentiousness, anarchy, and 
oppression. The brief republican experiment be- 
gun in England in 1648 was a figment of mili- 
tary rule, promoted by theocratic ideas mixed with 
millennial dreams. Those ideas had no ancestry 
in common with English ideas of freedom. Cal- 
vin, whose theocratic republic at Geneva was re- 
garded by his adherents throughout the Protestant 
world as an example of a Christian commonwealth, 
agreed with the mediaeval jurists in holding both 
church and state of divine origin ; but instead of 
regarding the Pope as Christ's vicegerent upon 
earth, exercising His jurisdiction over the souls of 
men, and the Emperor as His vicegerent in secular 
affairs, Calvin held that Christ himself was the 
true head of church and state, thus establishing 
their organic union, the function of the state being 
to control external conditions so as to secure the 
church in the maintenance of its doctrines, order, 
and discipline. 1 The operation of such ideas was 
accompanied by a disposition to discard the his- 

1 Osgood's " Political Ideas of the Puritans," Political Science 
Quarterly, March-June, 1891. 



THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF THE FATHERS 27 

toric appliances of English liberty. Milton's 
" Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free 
Commonwealth " was for the people to exhaust 
their rights of suffrage in one constituent act. 
They should choose once and for all time their 
ablest and wisest men to sit as a grand council for 
the management of public affairs. He refers to 
the experience of ancient and mediaeval republics 
as proof that popular assemblies " either little 
availed the people, or else brought them to such 
a licentious and unbridled democracy as in fine' 
ruined themselves with their own excessive 
power." The reason why kingship is esteemed 
"the more safe and durable" form of government 
is " because the king, and for the most part his 
council, is not changed during life." This stability 
may be given to a republic by adopting the same 
principle of a perpetual tenure of authority. 
" Safest therefore to me, it seems, and of less 
hazard and interruption to affairs, that none of the 
grand council be moved, unless by death or just 
conviction of some crime ; for what can be ex- 
pected firm or steadfast from a floating founda- 
tion." Such a government, he argued, would 
maintain the commonwealth in peace and pros- 
perity, " even to the coming of our true and right- 
ful, and only to be expected king, only worthy, as 
He is our only Saviour, the Messiah, the Christ." 

The Cromwellian commonwealth left behind it 
memories of sanctimonious despotism which made 



28 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN P Oil TICS 

hatred of republics and all their belongings one 
of the strongest of English prejudices. A crisis 
arrived when this prejudice became influential in 
determining the course of English constitutional 
development. When James II became a fugitive, 
the Tories were driven, by stress of their party 
principle of the indefeasible tenure of royal author- 
ity, into proposing that the absence of the king 
should be treated as if it were a case of physical 
disability, and that the government should be car- 
ried on in the king's name by a regent. The 
Whigs met this by the argument that since there 
was no prospect that James would fail of heirs, 
the nation might have to be governed perpetually 
by regents or protectors, and would thus approach 
much closer to a republic than if another king 
were put upon the throne. The settlement of 
English kingship upon a parliamentary title, 
making it an institution intrinsically republican, 
v/as thus promoted by the strength of anti-repub- 
lican prejudice. 1 

The English tendency to restrict royal preroga- 
tive, while enthusiastically upholding it, was the 
result of a sort of concordat between popular at- 
tachment to representative institutions and popular 

1 A Tory argument against the establishment of the Bank of Eng- 
land, in 1694, affords a grotesque instance of the activity of this prej- 
udice. The banks famous at that time were those of Venice, 
Genoa, Amsterdam, and Hamburg, and hence it was argued that a 
bank was a republican institution which it would be dangerous to 
introduce in a monarchy. Macaulay's History, Chap. XX. 



THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF THE FATHERS 29 

reverence for kings. The circumstances were such 
that neither principle of government could exter- 
minate the other, so they were brought into ac- 
commodation by means of a doctrine in which each 
found its place. Prerogative and popular rights 
should be so balanced as to protect the nation from 
tyranny on the one side and from mob rule on the 
other. The different estates of the realm should 
be so represented in the government that each 
should be able to check excess upon the part of 
another. Support for this doctrine was found in 
the writings of Aristotle, Polybius, Cicero, and 
Tacitus. Montesquieu's adherence to it in oppo- 
sition to the general current of European opinion 
made his " Spirit of the Laws " more influential in 
England and America than that great work ever 
was in the author's own country. Blackstone ex- 
hibited this doctrine as the fundamental principle 
of the British constitution, with such a parade of 
learning as to make his conclusions seem indispu- 
table, and with such noble resources of style that 
the " Commentaries " took rank as a literary classic 
as well as a law book. The same doctrine eventu- 
ally received from Edmund Burke the most elo- 
quent expression ever given to political ideas. It 
floats in the music of his grandest passages — as 
when he speaks of "that action and interaction 
which in the natural and in the political world, 
from the reciprocal struggles of discordant powers, 
draws out the harmony of the universe." 



V 

30 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

Two currents of thought may be discerned in 
colonial politics. One of these had received its 
impulse from the Puritan movement. A theocracy 
has really no love for democratic ideas ; at a later 
period abundant evidence of this was furnished by 
New England. But it is always the disposition of 
theocracy, when confronted by royal authority, to 
encourage the assertion of popular rights, and in 
Massachusetts, especially, the state of popular senti- 
ment showed an infusion of anti-monarchical preju- 
dice. The main stream of colonial ideas was, 
however, that which flowed in the channels of 
English law, bearing with it an inveterate attach- 
ment to prerogative as an essential ingredient of 
a free constitution, a necessary counterpoise to 
representative institutions. Even so radical a 
thinker as Thomas Paine was forced to defer to 
this sentiment. In his celebrated pamphlet, " Com- 
mon Sense," issued in January, 1776, after urging 
the people to look above to a king, "who doth not 
make havoc of His people like the royal brute of 
England," he adds : " Yet that we may not ap- 
pear defective in earthly honors, let a day be 
solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter ; 
let it be brought forth, placed on the divine law, 
the work of God ; let a crown be placed thereon, 
by which the world may know that so far as we 
approve of monarchy, in America the law is king." 
Prejudice against democracy is turned on the 
Tories by the argument that England is too far 



THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF THE FATHERS 3 1 

away to give adequate protection, so that if Amer- 
ica should neglect to provide herself with a govern- 
ment of her own, " some Masaniello may hereafter 
arise who, laying hold of popular disquietude, may 
collect together the desperate and discontented, 
and by assuming to themselves the powers of 
government finally sweep away the liberties of 
the continent like a deluge." Paine's suggestion 
is prophetic of what happened. After the adoption 
of the constitution the veneration became attached 
to it which was formerly felt for royalty. 

Failure to appreciate the intensity of public 
attachment to the principle of balanced powers 
of government would leave concealed the true 
cause of the Revolutionary struggle. It was the 
firm conviction of thinking men that the only hope 
of free institutions lay in the adjustments of the 
English constitution. If these seemed to place the 
liberties of the people in a dangerous strait between 
the rock and the whirlpool, so much the more 
reason why any deviation from the traditional 
course should meet with resolute resistance. It 
was not the extent of the taxation — that was triv- 
ial in comparison with that which independence 
made necessary ; it was not that the doctrine " no 
taxation without representation " was regarded as 
an essential principle of legitimate government — 
it was not included in the enumeration of rights 
attached to the constitution and has never been 
formulated as a constitutional principle ; — not be- 



/ 

32 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

cause of these things did the revolt of the colonies 
take place. It was because the actions of the 
British government assumed an absolute authority 
which violated the spirit of the English constitu- 
tion, the fundamental compact controlling the rela- 
tions between the king and his people. The 
deepest political instincts of the race were out- 
raged. 

This state of public sentiment explains those 
diverse manifestations which make the American 
uprising unique among revolutions : sincere pro- 
fessions of loyalty to the British crown in the very 
thick of battle with British armies ; extreme hesi- 
tancy in effecting an alliance with France even 
after George III had set the example of calling 
in a foreign power by the hire of foreign mercena- 
ries ; great aversion to issuing a declaration of 
independence even after it had become a manifest 
necessity to enable the colonies to obtain help 
from abroad. The declaration of the cause of 
taking up arms, which repudiates any intention of 
separating from the British crown, was read before 
the troops on Prospect Hill, in July, 1775, amid 
such shouts that the British on Bunker Hill put 
themselves in array for battle. 1 It required some- 
what violent methods to force a declaration of in- 
dependence through Congress. Evidently the 
American leaders were revolutionists, not from 
choice, but from compulsion. They renounced 

1 Bancroft's History, Vol. VIII., p. 47. 



THE POLITICAL IDEAS OF THE FATHERS 33 

their allegiance to the English king without break- 
ing their attachment to the English constitution. 
The traditional ideas still controlled political 
thought, but their expression in the government 
of the union was hindered by obstacles which long 
seemed insurmountable. 

D 



CHAPTER III 

THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION 

The ideas of government held by the American 
Whigs could find no satisfaction in the Confedera- 
tion. That was merely an agency of state coopera- 
tion for the management of common interests. It 
was not thought of as a regular government. The 
Articles of Confederation committed to Congress 
the control of the national budget, the regulation 
of the army and navy, the appointment of public 
officers, and in fine the entire management of pub- 
lic affairs. The concentration of authority was as 
great as in English parliamentary government in 
our own times, and was altogether incompatible 
with the ideas of those times, but public opinion 
was calmly indifferent. In 1781, Jefferson wrote, 
"An elective despotism was not the government 
we fought for ; but one which should not only be 
founded on free principles, but in which the powers 
of government should be so divided and balanced 
among several bodies of magistracy as that no one 
could transcend their legal limits without being 
effectually checked and restrained by the others." 1 
He was thinking, however, of the changes in the 
Virginia constitution by which the selection of 

1 Notes on Virginia, Chap. XIII. 
34 



THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION 35 

the governor and other officers formerly appointed 
by the crown had been taken over by the legislat- 
ure. The case of the Confederation was far more 
obnoxious to the principle he states, but it does not 
occur to him. In 1787, John Adams wrote, "If 
there is one certain truth to be collected from the 
history of all ages, it is this : that the people's rights 
and liberties, and the democratic mixture in a con- 
stitution, can never be preserved without a strong 
executive, or, in other words without separating the 
executive power from the legislature." This pas- 
sage occurs in his " Defence of the Constitutions 
of Government of the United States of America," 
written in reply to a criticism by Turgot on Ameri- 
can institutions. The great French publicist ob- 
jected to them on the ground that they did not 
collect all the authority of government in one 
centre to represent the will of the nation. 1 It did 

1 Writing to Dr. Richard Price of London, March 22, 1778, 
Turgot said : " I see in the greatest number (of the American state 
constitutions) an unreasonable imitation of the usages of England. 
Instead of bringing all the authorities into one, that of the nation, 
they have established different bodies, — a House of Representatives, 
a council, a governor, — because England has a House of Commons, 
lords, and a king. They undertake to balance these different au- 
thorities, as if the same equilibrium of powers which has been 
thought necessary to balance the enormous preponderance of roy- 
alty could be of any use in republics, formed upon the equality of 
all citizens ; and as if every article which constitutes different bodies 
was not a source of divisions. By striving to escape imaginary 
dangers, they had created real ones." The criticism of the saga- 
cious French statesman has not lost its point. 



36 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POIITICS 

not occur to Adams to refute the objection by- 
citing the Articles of Confederation, but he ran- 
sacked history from civilization's dawn unto his 
own times to justify the course of the American 
states in adopting governments of distributed pow- 
ers. In his voluminous work the sole reference 
he makes to the body whose ambassador he then 
was, is this: ''Congress is not a legislative assem- 
bly, nor a representative assembly, but only a dip- 
lomatic assembly." 1 He would not commit the 
absurdity of classing a revolutionary junto among 
regularly constituted governments. 

People cared nothing about the principles on 
which the government of the Confederation was 
based, because they cared nothing for that gov- 
ernment. The Congress of the Confederation, 
although it remained in existence fourteen years, 
never took root in the affection or respect of the 
people. Its sittings were private, and its pro- 
ceedings made no appeal to public opinion. It 
remained in existence by sufferance only. The 
states flouted its authority whenever they felt 
disposed to do so. None of its plans to reform 
the government came to anything. The consti- 
tution was the result of an outside movement 
which Congress obeyed, but did not direct. The 

1 Adams' Works, Vol. IV., p. 379. In the constitutional con- 
vention, Edmund Randolph spoke of Congress in the same way. 
He said, " Elected by the legislatures who retain even a power of 
recall, they are a mere diplomatic body, with no will of their own." 



THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION 37 

period of the Confederation was one in which the 
functions of general government were in abeyance. 
Crown jurisdiction had been thrown off, but no suc- 
cession to it had been provided. The Confedera- 
tion was a makeshift, " neither fit for war or peace," 
as Hamilton remarked. 

During the war, incapacity of government and 
defects of administration were remedied to a sav- 
ing extent by French subsidies of money and 
troops, but now the stripling nation was left to its 
own resources. Although its success and pros- 
pects had excited some popular enthusiasm in 
Europe, rulers regarded it as a troublesome par- 
venu. It hardly retained the good will of its for- 
mer ally, France. "We have never pretended," 
wrote the Cabinet of Versailles to its representa- 
tive in America, " to make of America an useful 
ally ; we have had no other object than to deprive 
Great Britain of that vast continent. Therefore 
we can regard with indifference both the move- 
ments which agitate certain provinces and the 
fermentation which prevails in Congress." 1 

It was easy to take advantage of a nation so 
weak and incapable. England would not allow 
American goods to enter her ports unless they 
came on English ships. New England, the world- 
wide enterprise of whose seamen furnished Edmund 
Burke with an eloquent passage of his great speech 

1 Bancroft's Historyof the Constitution, Vol. II., pp. 415, 424, 
438. 



38 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

on American Conciliation, now found herself in a 
sorry plight. Spain would not allow American 
vessels to navigate the lower Mississippi, and the 
Western country was kept in a state of constant 
irritation by the closing of the natural outlet of 
its trade. Negotiations for commercial privileges 
were fruitless. Foreign nations would not make 
treaties with a nation which really had no govern- 
ment and was expected to go to pieces. Cyrus 
Griffin, President of Congress, told a correspond- 
ent : " The British courtiers are ridiculing our 
situation very much and tell Mr. Adams, in a sneer- 
ing manner, when America shall assume some kind 
of government then England will speak to her." 1 
The development of internal resources was no 
less sorely oppressed. Enterprise could not avail 
itself of opportunities because of the lack of stable 
government and of security for investors. Cred- 
itors were kept out of their own by stay laws or 
were defrauded by legal tender acts. The anarchi- 
cal influences set in motion by the Revolution swept 
so strongly over some of the states that the foun- 
dations of social order seemed to be dissolving. 
The situation in New England caused great 
anxiety. Puritanism, being an intense reaction of 
individualism against constituted authority, con- 
tains a political virus. The "generation of odd 
names and natures," which the Earl of Strafford 
noted among the English Roundheads, was the 
1 Bancroft's History of the Constitution, Vol. II., p. 469. 



THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION 39 

result of mental characteristics, which, strongly 
infused into American society by Puritan emigra- 
tion, have played a great part in our politics. The 
virus which those characteristics are able to distil 
has long since spent its force in the region of its 
original culture, but it continues to produce typical 
fevers in Western communities most deeply in- 
oculated with the New England strain. The 
delirious politics which ensue may afford some 
idea of the situation in New England during the 
period of social debility after the Revolutionary 
War. The policies which commanded strong popu- 
lar support excited the astonishment of observers, 
and other communities were then asking, What 
is the matter with New England ? 

The control of affairs had slipped away from the 
leaders of the Revolution. Their correspondence 
is marked by extreme anxiety, almost despondency. 
Although Washington had refused to consider the 
offer of some of the army officers to make him 
king, the correspondence of prominent men 
towards the close of the Confederation period 
shows that they were coming to the belief that a 
return to kingship was the only way out of the 
troubles of the times. A British secret agent 
reported to his government, " I can assure you 
that where you had one friend in the last war, you 
would find three now." 1 The wretched state of the 
times is powerfully set forth in Number 15 of the 

1 Bancroft's History of the Constitution, Vol. II., p. 424. 



40 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

Federalist. In conclusion the article asks : " What 
indication is there of national disorder, poverty, 
and insignificance that could befall a community 
so peculiarly blessed with natural advantages as 
we are, which does not form a part of the dark 
catalogue of our public misfortunes ? " 

Meanwhile, the forces of progress were finding 
a natural channel in conformity with the lay of 
popular character. It was generally admitted that 
something ought to be done about the affairs of 
the Confederation. But something had to be 
done about such matters as Virginia's loss of trade 
because of the lower rates of duty imposed by 
Maryland, and the menace to Maryland's com- 
merce contained in Virginia's claim of the right to 
levy tolls upon vessels passing between the capes 
of the Chesapeake. Complications of interest 
troubled New York and New Jersey with regard 
to the commerce of New York Bay, and New Jer- 
sey and Pennsylvania with regard to Delaware 
Bay. To adjust such matters joint action was 
required, and even during the war commercial nego- 
tiations took place between colonies. 

In 1785, commissioners appointed by Maryland 
and Virginia to frame an agreement for the regu- 
lation of Chesapeake Bay commerce, were to meet 
in Alexandria. Washington invited them to his 
residence, Mount Vernon. That meeting was the 
starting-point of the movement for the establish- 
ment of a more perfect union. The proceedings 



THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION 4 1 

afforded an opportunity which the national school 
of politicians adroitly seized. The ostensible 
object of the series of interstate negotiations 
which followed was to establish an uniform system 
of commercial regulations. The purpose of the 
national politicians was to prevent this while using 
the movement to prepare the way for the adoption 
of a national constitution. Their management 
was a masterpiece of political strategy. The com- 
mercial convention which met at Annapolis, Sep- 
tember 11, 1786, was completely under their 
control. 1 An address was issued, drawn up in 
language whose tact and ingenuity make it the 
illustrious predecessor of the literary efforts of 
succeeding generations of politicians in concocting 
manifestoes for use among the people. Anxious 
concern was expressed as to the effect the adop- 
tion of a scheme of commercial regulation might 
have upon the operations of the general govern- 
ment, and it was recommended that every state 
should send commissioners to a convention to con- 
sider the subject in all its bearings. 

After Madison's death there was found in his 
papers an account of these proceedings, which 
allows a glimpse into what would now be called 
the inside politics of the movement. He relates 

1 Twelve commissioners were present, representing five states. 
Eight of those commissioners were chosen as delegates to the con- 
stitutional convention. Among them were : Alexander Hamilton, 
James Madison, Edmund Randolph, and John Dickinson. 



42 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

that a number of the commissioners stayed away 
from "a belief that the time has not yet arrived 
for such a political reform as might be expected 
from a further experience of its necessity." 1 We 
have, however, a full disclosure of the plans of the 
national leaders in a letter of October 10, 1786, 
from Otto, the French minister, to his chief, Count 
Vergennes. Otto tells him : " Although there are 
no nobles in America, there is a class of men 
denominated 'gentlemen,' who, by reason of their 
wealth, their talents, their education, their families, 
or the offices they hold, aspire to a preeminence 
which the people refuse to grant them ; and al- 
though many of these men have betrayed the 
interests of their order to gain popularity, there 
reigns among them a connection so much the more 
intimate as they almost all of them dread the efforts 
of the people to despoil them of their possessions, 
and, moreover, they are creditors, and therefore 
interested in strengthening the government and 
watching over the execution of the laws. . . . 
The attempt, my lord, has been vain, by pamphlets 
and other publications, to spread notions of justice 
and integrity, and to deprive the people of a free- 
dom which they have so misused. By proposing 
a new organization of the general government, all 
minds would have been revolted ; circumstances 
ruinous to the commerce of America have happily 

1 Introduction to Madison's Journal. 



THE CONSERVATIVE REACTION 43 

arisen to furnish the reformers with a pretext for 
introducing innovations." 

Otto describes the movement for a commercial 
convention and continues : " The authors of this 
proposition had no hope, nor even desire, to see 
the success of this assembly of commissioners, 
which was only intended to prepare a question 
much more important than that of commerce. 
The measures were so well taken that at the end 
of September no more than five states were repre- 
sented at Annapolis, and the commissioners from 
the Northern states tarried several days at New 
York in order to retard their arrival. The states 
which assembled, after having waited nearly three 
weeks, separated under the pretext that they were 
not in sufficient numbers to enter on the business, 
and, to justify this dissolution, they addressed to 
the different legislatures and to Congress a report, 
the translation of which I have the honor to en- 
close you." 

" In this paper the commissioners employ an 
infinity of circumlocutions and ambiguous phrases 
to show their constituents the impossibility of 
taking into consideration a general plan of com- 
merce and the powers pertaining thereto, without 
at the same time touching upon other subjects 
closely connected with the prosperity and national 
importance of the United States. Without enu- 
merating these objects, the commissioners enlarge 
upon the present crisis of public affairs, upon the 



/ 



44 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POIITICS 

dangers to which the Confederation is exposed, 
upon the want of credit of the United States 
abroad, and upon the necessity of uniting, under a 
single point of view, the interests of all the states. 
They close by proposing for the month of May 
next a new assembly of commissioners, instructed 
to deliberate, not only upon a general plan of com- 
merce, but upon other matters which may concern 
the harmony and welfare of the states, and upon 
the means of rendering the federal government 
adequate to the exigencies of the union." 

The call for the convention, which met at Phila- 
delphia, May, 1787, provided that it should "revise 
the Articles of Confederation." That pretext hav- 
ing served its purpose, no more attention was paid 
to it. As soon as the delegates met, the real 
design of a restoration of government was taken 
in hand. The scheme of the national politicians 
was thus borne to its destination on the back of a 
movement for commercial regulations. It is an 
early specimen of "the rider," that ruse so fre- 
quently resorted to in political strategy for the 
control of legislation. 



K 



CHAPTER IV 

THE RESTORATION 

The way things had been going on since the 
colonies had become independent states had greatly 
excited among the delegates the traditional preju- 
dice against democracy. That which they had 
feared all along, which had made them so reluctant 
to carry their resistance to parliamentary oppres- 
sion to the point of declaring their independence 
of the British crown — the outbreak of democratic 
licentiousness — had come to pass, and they were 
aghast at the evil look of the times. They met 
behind closed doors, and could talk freely. Roger 
Sherman, a signer of the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, solemnly laid down the rule that "the people 
should have as little to do as may be with the gov- 
ernment." 1 George Mason thought "it would be 
as unnatural to refer the choice of a proper char- 
acter for chief magistrate to the people, as it would 
be to refer a trial of colors to a blind man." Madi- 
son did not think large bodies of men had much 
regard for honesty. " Respect for character is 
always diminished in proportion to the number 

1 All the quotations from the convention debates are taken 
from Madison's Journal. 

45 



46 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

among whom the blame or praise is to be divided." 
Elbridge Gerry remarked that " he did not deny 
the position of Mr. Madison, that the majority will 
generally violate justice when they have an interest 
in doing so." The great argument in behalf of the 
states' rights doctrine, to which the particular inter- 
ests of the smaller states naturally impelled them, 
was that its adoption would provide additional social 
security, making the ship of state a compartment 
vessel, as it were, so that a democratic inundation 
would be limited to- the vicinity of the breach, and 
would not at once overwhelm the whole fabric. 
Said John Dickinson, " Of remedies for the dis- 
eases of republics which have flourished for a 
moment only and then vanished forever, one is the 
double branch of the legislature, and the other the 
accidental lucky division of this country into dis- 
tinct states." 

Frequent reference was made to the corruption 
and incapacity of state legislatures. Madison com- 
plained that "the backwardness of the best citi- 
zens to engage in the legislative service gave too 
great success to unfit characters." John Francis 
Mercer of Maryland dwelt upon the need of pro- 
tecting the people " against those speculating legis- 
latures which are now plundering them throughout 
the United States." But there was small hope 
that a national legislature would be much better. 
Mason remarked that, "notwithstanding the pre- 
cautions taken in the constitution of the legislature, 



THE RESTORATION 47 

it would still so much resemble that of the individ- 
ual states that it must be expected frequently to 
pass unjust and pernicious laws." Edmund Ran- 
dolph argued that " the Senate will be more likely 
to be corrupt than the House of Representatives, 
and should therefore have less to do with money 
matters." Hamilton remarked : " We must take 
man as we find him, and if we expect him to serve 
the public we must interest his passions in doing 
so." Gouverneur Morris said: "One interest must 
be opposed to another interest. Vices, as they 
exist, must be turned against each other." 

But how was this to be accomplished ? The 
model of government all had in mind was the 
English constitution. Many eulogistic references 
to it were made in the course of the debates. It 
was, however, admitted that American society did 
not afford materials from which such a constitution 
could be formed. There were no distinct orders 
in the state which could be balanced against one 
another like the crown, lords, and commons. The 
best the delegates could do was to frame a govern- 
ment on the principles of the English constitution. 
They were agreed on this, but there were sharp 
differences as to the application of those principles 
under the conditions set by the political situation. 
In addition, they had to consider above all things 
the practical question : How were the states to be 
brought into subordination again ? Since their 
approval was necessary to give effect to any plan 



48 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

of union, some way had to be found to reconcile 
their conflicting pretensions. Under the Articles 
of Confederation the states, large or small, met as 
equals in Congress. Consent to that had been 
easy, since in practice each state might decide for 
itself whether it would abide by what was done. 
The case was very different when it was proposed 
to establish a government of independent resources 
and imperial authority. The smaller states had to 
be persuaded to relinquish their complete equality 
of representation with the larger states ; the larger 
states had to be coaxed into making concessions 
to the smaller. Can a more difficult problem of 
practical politics be imagined ? It was finally solved, 
not to the satisfaction of the delegates but in a 
tolerable way, by practical expedients which were 
to acquire immense importance, and which were 
indeed the unconscious development of new facul- 
ties in the political organism under the constraint 
of hard necessity. 

At the time of the Revolution, the provincial 
assemblies seized the powers reft from royal 
authority and elected executive officials formerly 
appointed by the crown or the lords proprietary. 
Just such powers the Parliament of England had 
exercised in 1689 when William and Mary were 
elected to fill the vacancy caused by the flight of 
James II. The first thought, in the reconstruction 
of a general government for America, was to pro- 
ceed in the same way. The Virginia plan, pre- 



THE RESTORATION 49 

pared in advance of the meeting of the conven- 
tion, provided that the executive and the judiciary 
should be chosen by the national legislature. The 
national legislature should have power to negative 
all state laws contravening national interests. This 
would have put the states, in their relations to the 
general government, in about the same position as 
the charter colonies had been with respect to the 
British government, and this was the intention. 
Writing to Edmund Randolph, while the Virginia 
plan was preparing, Madison said, " Let it have 
a negative in all cases whatever, on the legislative 
acts of the states, as the king of Great Britain 
heretofore had." Hamilton's proposition, that the 
national executive should appoint the governors, 
would have put the states in about the same posi- 
tion as the royal colonies had been. All were 
agreed that a subordination of the states to the 
general government was necessary to the extent 
which its proper functions required ; but what the 
relative situation of the states would be, under 
any scheme which might be contrived, was a point 
of great difficulty. Virginia, on a basis of repre- 
sentation according to population, would elect more 
members of the national legislature than five of 
the smaller states. Her vote, combined with that 
of three other large states, would outweigh the 
representation of the remaining nine states. The 
smaller states were determined not to be swallowed 
up in that way. The hitch at this point balked 



50 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

the business until the idea was hit upon of leaving 
state autonomy intact by delineating for the gen- 
eral government an orbit which should include the 
citizenship of the nation upon a plane apart from 
that in which the state governments revolved. 1 
The dual citizenship of Americans, which has had 
such vast constitutional results, was thus wrought 
by a casual stroke. 

The issue as regards the composition of the 
national legislature was settled by a compromise 
giving the states equal representation in the 
Senate, while in the House representation was 
according to the population as computed by a 
special rule which allowed slaves to be counted for 
only three-fifths of their numbers. The problem 
as regards the constitution of the executive proved 
insoluble until the idea was conceived of making 
the selection of the executive the discretionary act 
of an elite body appointed by the states expressly 
for that purpose. "The immediate election should 
be made by men most capable of analyzing the 
qualities adapted to the station, and acting under 
circumstances favorable to deliberation." 2 In 
order that the courts should be "the bulwarks of 
a limited constitution against legislative encroach- 

1 John Dickinson, whose championship of state rights led the 
way in this direction, said, " The proposed system is like the solar 
system, in which the states are the planets, and they ought to be 
left to move more freely in their proper orbits." 

2 The Federalist, No. 68. 



THE RESTORATION 5 1 

merits," 1 it was then settled that the judiciary 
should be constituted by executive appointment, 
independence of executive control being secured by 
establishing a life tenure of office. It is the one 
department of the government which has exactly 
fulfilled the original conception. It has had an 
enormous growth in power and dignity, but strictly 
speaking this growth has not been a development, 
but rather an increasing exercise of functions 
assigned to it from the beginning. 

The influence moulding all the conceptions, the 
idea regulating all the contrivances of those 
ardent politicians and able young lawyers, intent 
upon obtaining some practical result to their labors, 
was the Whig doctrine of checks and balances of 
authority through distribution of the powers of 
government. 2 In adapting the English constitu- 
tion to American use, they endeavored to exclude 
influences which seemed to be disturbing the 
balance of power in the English constitution, and 
they incorporated in the American constitution 

1 The Federalist, No. 78. 

2 The work of the convention was done by the young men. 
Washington, who was then fifty-five, presided, but took no part in 
the debates. Dr. Franklin, who was old and near the close of 
his life, exerted himself to promote agreement, but he does not 
seem to have concerned himself much about details. He thought 
that sooner or later a king would be set up, but desired that republi- 
can institutions should have a trial, and he was willing to accede to 
almost any arrangement to that end. See Madison's Journal, June 
2, 4, and July 24. 



52 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

restraints suggested by English and colonial ex- 
perience. The united control of legislation and 
administration, which was obtained by the practice 
of selecting the ministers of the crown from 
among the leaders of Parliament, was an aberration 
from constitutional theory against which English 
reformers were in the habit of inveighing. The act 
of settlement, passed by a reforming House of 
Commons in 1700, contained an article stipulating 
that "no person who has an office or place of 
profit under the king shall be capable of serving 
as a member of the House of Commons." This 
article, which was defeated by crown influence, was 
transferred to the constitution of the United 
States after suitable revision of its language. 1 An 
accompanying article of the act of settlement 
guarded against the irresponsible exercise of power 
by providing for the transaction of important 
affairs of state in the privy council, with the re- 
quirement that those who should advise and con- 
sent to what was done should so record themselves. 
These ideas are reflected in the provisions of the 
constitution, adopted after repeated efforts to concert 
a scheme for a privy council distinct from Congress 
had failed, by which the Senate is associated with 
the President as his advisers in the negotiation of 
treaties and in the appointment of public officers. 2 

1 Section 6, Article I. 

2 Section 2, Article II. A comparison between the constitution, 
with the amendments immediately made to it, and the bill of rights 



THE RESTORATION 53 

The bestowal of these important functions upon 
the Senate made it more powerful than the House 
of Lords upon which it was modelled. Great 
things were expected of the Senate. Of course it 
would represent wealth. The qualifications then 
required for membership in the state legislatures 
would insure that. John Dickinson, on whose 
motion it was decided that the senators should be 
elected by the state legislatures, gave as one of 
his reasons that " he wished the Senate to consist 
of the most distinguished characters, distinguished 
for their rank in life and their weight of property, 
and bearing as strong a likeness to the British 
House of Lords as was possible." James Madison 
thought that "the second branch, as a limited num- 
ber of citizens, respectable for wisdom and virtue, 
will be watched by and will keep watch over the 
representatives of the people ; it will seasonably 
interpose between impetuous councils, and will 
guard the minority who are placed above indigence 
against the agrarian attempts of the ever-increasing 
class who labor under the hardships of life, and 
secretly strive for a more equal distribution of its 
blessings." Gouverneur Morris hoped that the 
Senate "will show us the might of aristocracy." 

But even the creation of such a body as this was 

of 1689, will show other points of resemblance indicating the source 
of the political ideas embodied in the constitution. See Stevens' 
" Sources of the Constitution of the United States " for a thorough 
discussion of this subject. 



54 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

not a sufficient safeguard against democracy. The 
great concern of the delegates was to provide effect- 
ive restraints on the legislative branch. " It is 
against the enterprising ambition of this depart- 
ment," said Madison, " that the people ought to 
indulge all their jealousy and exhaust all their pre- 
cautions." 1 On the other hand, Hamilton re- 
marked that "energy in the executive is a leading 
character in the definition of a good government." 2 
Congress was given no powers except such as were 
specified. The powers of the President are plenary 
except as specifically limited. In the one case the 
language of the constitution is: "All legislative 
powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress 
of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate 
and a House of Representatives." In the other 
case the grant is without reserve, " The executive 
power shall be vested in a President of the United 
States of America." Language which might 
imply subordination is avoided. The President's 
oath of office is : "I will faithfully execute the 
office of President of the United States, and will, 
to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and de- 
fend the constitution of the United States." Not 
Congressional authority alone but executive pre- 
rogative also is a fountain of law. Madison de- 
clared, " All constitutional acts of power, whether 
in the executive or in the judicial department, have 

1 The Federalist, No. 48. 

2 Ibid., No. 70. 



THE RESTORATION 55 

as much legal validity and obligation as if they 
proceeded from the legislature." 1 The delegates 
seem to have looked forward to the possibility that 
the President might have to act as a saviour of 
society, on the principle tersely stated by Madison 
that "the safety and happiness of society are the 
objects at which all political institutions aim and to 
which all such institutions must be sacrificed." 2 
To obtain their full significance as conceived by 
the fathers, the provisions of the constitution, re- 
quiring that the United States shall guarantee 
to every state a republican form of government and 
give protection from domestic violence, should be 
interpreted in connection with this embodiment of 
prerogative. The Shays' Rebellion in Massachu- 
setts and the disturbances in New Hampshire and 
Rhode Island had laid a great fear on the dele- 
gates. 

At the first session of Congress, the Senate, 
under the lead of John Adams, endeavored to carry 
out these ideas of presidential prerogative by 
attaching titles of royalty to the office; but the 
House of -Representatives defeated all such propo- 
sitions. Nevertheless the precautions taken by the 
framers of the constitution, in behalf of the presi- 
dency, were so effectual that Congress was made 
an incurably deficient and inferior organ of govern- 
ment. As the nation develops and the people 

1 The Federalist, No. 64. 

2 Ibid., No. 45. 



/ 



56 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

increase their qualifications for self-government, it 
will be seen that they will lay hold of the presi- 
dency as the only organ sufficient for the exercise 
of their sovereignty. 

In giving shape to the determinations of the con- 
vention, the draughting committee seems to have 
made free use of material afforded by state consti- 
tutions. It is a common legislative practice to 
consult the statute books for material already 
shaped for use, and in this respect the behavior of 
the convention of 1787 was what that of any con- 
stitutional convention in our own times might be. 
In plan and purpose, the constitution is a product 
of the political ideas of the English race. It stands 
in lineal succession to such muniments of public 
right as Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights of 1689, 
and the Act of Settlement of 1700. The embodi- 
ment of Whig doctrine in a written constitution 
was, however, an unperceived revolution in politi- 
cal conditions, since it converted what was simply 
a working theory, open to modification as times 
changed, into a rigid frame of government. The 
anatomy of the English constitution was completed 
by the establishment of royalty on a parliamentary 
title. Its development since then has been carried 
on by functional activities. 1 The constitution oi 
the United States was a sort of Act of Settlement 



1 Lecky comments instructively upon this point. History of 
England, Vol. III., p. io. 



THE RESTORATION 57 

after the American Whig revolution of 1775- 1783 ; 
but in adapting the traditional structure of govern- 
ment to new uses, the federal composition of the 
nation compelled changes which, although intended 
as simple variations, resulted in generic difference. 
In endeavoring to get back to the old type of gov- 
ernment, the fathers originated a new type of. more 
complex organization and larger capacities of devel- 
opment. The old type, from its superior complex- 
ity to the simple forms of absolute rule, could not 
have been developed save in the shelter of Eng- 
land's insular position. The still more elaborate 
organization of the new type had a remote new 
world in which to expand. Although its develop- 
ment is still incomplete, its stability is so well 
established that federal government is now the 
mould of empire. Guizot says, " Of all the 
systems of government and political guarantee, it 
may be asserted without fear of contradiction 
that the most difficult to establish and render 
effectual is the federated system : a system which 
consists in leaving in each place or province, in 
every separate society, all that portion of govern- 
ment which can abide there, and in taking from 
it only so much of it as is indispensable to a 
general society, in order to carry it to the cen- 
tre of this larger society, and there to embody 
it under the form of a central government." x 

1 Guizot's History of Civilization, Lecture IV. 



58 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

This distribution of independent powers of govern- 
ment, according to the respective needs of local and 
general administration, all comprehended in organic 
union, is the contribution of America to the advance 
of political science, and it has been evolved from 
the old Whig doctrine. 



CHAPTER V 

CLASS RULE 

The constitutional history of the United States 
begins with the establishment of the government 
of the masses by the classes. It was expected as 
a matter of course that the gentry would control 
every branch of the government. " The adminis- 
tration of government, in its larger sense," re- 
marked Hamilton, " comprehends all the operations 
of the body politic, whether legislative, executive, 
or judiciary." x This unity was to be maintained by 
the fact that the conduct of public affairs would 
be a part of the activity of good society, enmeshed 
in its usual ambitions, enjoyments, and habits of 
intercourse. Who, save the gentry, would have the 
means or ability to attend to such matters ? The 
common people were not regarded as having any 
direct part in the government at all. It was ad- 
mitted that " there are strong minds in every walk 
of life that will rise superior to the disadvantages 
of their situation, and will command the tribute 
due to their merit, not only from the classes to 
which they particularly belong, but from the society 
in general," but these "are exceptions to the rule." 

!The Federalist, No. 72. 
59 



/' 



/ 



/ 



60 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

"The representative body, with too few exceptions 
to have any influence on the spirit of the govern- 
ment, will be composed of landholders, merchants, 
and men of the learned professions." 1 

The checks and balances of the constitution 
were regarded, not as restraints upon the gov- 
ernment itself, but as restraints upon the classes 
who would have possession of the government, to 
keep them from abusing their trusts for individual 
advantage. By giving a different constitution to 
the various branches of government, it was in- 
tended to counteract class selfishness by creating 
antagonistic interests. " Ambition must be made 
to counteract ambition," said Madison. "The 
interests of the man must be connected with the 
constitutional rights of the place." 2 John Adams 
wrote, " It is the true policy of the common peo- 
ple to place the whole executive power in one man, 
to make him a distinct order in the state, from 
whence arises an inevitable jealousy between him 
and the rest of the gentlemen ; this forces him to 
become the father and protector of the common 
people, and to endeavor always to humble every 
proud aspiring senator, or other officer in the state, 
who is in danger of acquiring an influence too 
great for the law or the spirit of the constitu- 
tion." 3 And again, " If the people are suffi- 
ciently enlightened to see all the dangers that 

!The Federalist, Nos. 35, 36. * Ibid., No. 51. 

3 Adams' Works, Vol. VI., p. 186. 



CLASS RULE 6 1 

surround them, they will always be represented by 
a distinct personage to manage the whole executive 
power ; a distinct Senate, to be guardians of prop- 
erty against levellers for the purposes of plunder, 
to be a repository of the national tradition of 
public maxims, customs, and manners, and to be 
controllers in turn both of kings and ministers on 
one side, and the representatives of the people on 
the other, when either discover a disposition to do 
wrong ; and a distinct House of Representatives, 
to be the guardian of the public purse and to pro- 
tect the people, in their turn, against both kings 
and nobles." x 

A government constituted on these principles 
was obviously not a republic, in the sense in which 
we use the word, as implying popular rule. A title 
fairly descriptive of its nature was that applied to 
it by John Adams, in some correspondence with 
Roger Sherman, at the time of the adoption of 
the constitution. He called it "a monarchical 
republic " ; but it must not be supposed that there 
is in the term any intimation of a hybrid or unique 
species of government. In his writings on gov- 
ernment, Adams Had classified England under the 
same title ; and in now applying it to America he 
meant simply that it, too, was a monarchy, in that 
the custody of the executive power was an individual 
trust, and that it was also republican, inasmuch 
as the constitution provided for the represen- 

1 Adams' Works, Vol. VI., pp. 117, 1 1 8. 






62 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

tation of the people. It is quite plain that this 
was the view taken by the authors of the Feder- 
alist, though not so bluntly stated. The new gov- 
ernment is always referred to as republican ; but 
Madison explained that by republic he means "a 
government in which the scheme of representa- 
tion takes place" — a definition which includes 
England quite as well as America. He argued 
that the new government should by no means be 
classed with the democratic republics of antiquity, 
in which the people ruled. " Democracies have 
ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention, 
have ever been found incompatible with personal 
security or the rights of property, and have in 
general been as short in their lives as they have 
been violent in their deaths." Means must be 
provided "to refine and enlarge the public views, 
by passing them through the medium of a chosen 
body of citizens whose wisdom may best discern 
the true interests of their country." 1 "The true 
distinction between these (ancient republics) and 
the American governments lies in the total exclu- 

1 The Federalist, No. 10. Adams in one of his letters remarks 
that in England a republican was regarded as unamiably as a witch 
or blasphemer. According to Jefferson's Anas something of this 
prejudice against the word lingered in Washington's mind. Jef- 
ferson relates that on May 23, 1793, Washington called his atten- 
tion to the word " republic " in the draft of a state paper, with 
the remark that it was a word " which he had never before seen in 
any of our public communications." On November 28, Jefferson 
records his satisfaction that the expression " our republic " had 



CLASS RULE 6$ 

sion of the people in their collective capacity from 
any share in the latter." : 

There is nothing in the constitution requiring 
Congress to hold public sittings, although "each 
House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and 
from time to time publish the same, except such 
parts as may in their judgment require secrecy." 
Members were not to be simply the delegates of 
the people ; for the purposes of government they 
were the people themselves. To protect them in 
the complete exercise of this representative capac- 
ity, it was provided that "for any speech or debate 
in either House they shall not be questioned in 
any other place." 2 That the people may know 

been introduced by Attorney General Randolph in his draught of the 
President's speech to Congress, and that Washington made no objec- 
tion to it. Jefferson's Writings (Ford's edition), Vol. I., pp. 231, 271. 

1 The Federalist, No. 63. 

2 Article 1, Section 6, of the constitution. The original source is 
the Bill of Rights of 1689. This privilege the House of Commons 
was in the habit of asserting to the extent of forbidding any publi- 
cation of its debates or comment on its proceedings. Colonial 
legislatures had as stoutly maintained the same privilege. This 
is one of the features on which Patrick Henry based his opposition 
to the adoption of the constitution. In one of his speeches before 
the Virginia convention he said : " What security have we in money 
matters? Inquiry is precluded by this constitution. . . . How are 
you to keep inquiry alive? How discover their conduct? We are 
told by that paper that a regular statement and account of the 
receipts and expenditures of public money shall be published from 
time to time. Here is a beautiful check ! Here is the utmost lati- 
tude left. If those who are in Congress please to put that con- 
struction upon it, the words of the constitution will be satisfied by 



64 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POIITICS 

what their trustees do with the funds in their keep- 
ing, "a regular statement of the receipts and ex- 
penditures of public money shall be published from 
time to time." Thus a certain degree of accounta- 
bility was established ; but the desire was not to 
enable the people to control the government, but 
to enable the government to control the people. 
" In framing a government which is to be adminis- 
tered by men over men," said Madison, "the great 
difficulty lies in this : you must first enable the gov- 
ernment to control the governed, and in the next 
place, oblige it to control itself." 1 

So, then, the framers of the constitution made 
no intentional provision for the control of the gov- 
ernment by public opinion. The idea could hardly 
have occurred to them. Public opinion in the mod- 
ern sense of the word is a very recent thing. As 
late as 1820, Sir Robert Peel spoke contemptuously 
of "that great compound of folly, weakness, preju- 
dice, wrong-feeling, right-feeling, obstinacy, and 
newspaper paragraphs which is called public opin- 
ion." If the definition had been attempted in 
1787, public opinion would have been described, 
very likely, as aristocratic greed, knavery, and in- 



publishing those accounts once in a hundred years. They may 
publish or not as they please." Wm. Wirt Henry's Patrick Henry, 
Vol. III., pp.491, 492. Popular anxiety on the subject was so great 
that the first amendment to the constitution prohibited the making 
of any laws " abridging the freedom of speech or of the press." 
1 The Federalist, No. 51. 



CLASS RULE 65 

trigue, compounded with popular stupidity and mob 
clamor. Who then could have dreamed of the great 
series of inventions which have transformed the 
world ? These elaborate networks of railroads 
and telegraphs, the product of a social activity 
which has meanwhile been making corresponding 
gains in public education and popular intelligence, 
are nerve filaments of the body politic, giving it 
an organization and a sensitiveness that constitute 
it a new being, unknown before since the begin- 
ning of the world. In the eighteenth century, the 
possibility of such a phenomenon was unthinkable. 
The human animal, alone or in the herd, was about 
the same as he always had been, and such as he 
was always likely to be. Political characteristics 
were much the same as when Aristotle surveyed 
party struggles in the Grecian states, or when 
Cicero analyzed the faction strifes of Rome. Mod- 
ern civilization itself seemed to be a barbarian en- 
campment in the ruins of the ancient world, the 
memorials of whose grandeur were melancholy 
portents. Gibbon, whose great history belongs 
to this period, concludes his account of the fall 
of the Roman Empire with some speculations on 
the fate of the modern world, whose undertone of 
gloomy foreboding is not concealed by their show 
of philosophic composure. In the grand French 
monarchy, where the stability of government seemed 
impregnable, society indulged optimistic dreams of 
what might be accomplished by the reign of philos- 



66 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN PO II TICS 

ophy. With light hearts and buoyant spirits the 
ancient regime pushed out into the stream of vanity 
and glided down towards the Niagara plunge of 
revolution. English institutions were still too un- 
settled after the upheavals of the seventeenth cen- 
tury to permit any false sense of security to arise. 
In England and America, the spirit of the age was 
pessimistic. There was an away-with-melancholy 
struggle in the coarse enjoyments of society. Ir- 
religion was as abounding as in France ; but it was 
not mocking in spirit, for the necessity of making 
use of every element of social order caused states- 
men to value even "the authority of superstition." * 
There was a cynic contempt of day dreams and 
utopist fancies. 2 While doing with Stoic fortitude 
what it lay in them to do, the men who took the 
chief part in founding the republic had painful 
misgivings as to the durability of their work. 3 

1 The Federalist, No. 38, by Madison. 

2 In the Federalist, No. 30, written by Hamilton, there is a 
characteristic allusion to the enthusiasts "who expect to see the 
halcyon scenes of the poetic or fabulous age realized in America." 

3 In a letter written in his old age, John Adams says that Wash- 
ington was made unhappy in his retirement, after occupying the 
presidential chair, by fears for his country. Adams' Works, Vol. X., 
p. 16. Hamilton, towards the close of the great career which was 
brought to such an untimely end, wrote to a friend, " Perhaps no 
man in the United States has sacrificed or done more for the pres- 
ent constitution than myself, and, contrary to all my anticipations 
of its fate, as you know, from the very beginning, I am still labor- 
ing to prop up the frail and worthless fabric." Works, Vol. VII., 
P- 591. 



CLASS RULE 67 

The democratic tendencies which they dreaded 
seemed uncontrollable. Despite all their pains in 
fashioning the machine on the old model, it would 
not work that way. The trouble was, as Fisher 
Ames acutely remarked, " Constitutions are but 
paper ; society is the substratum of government." 
The social conditions were such that the constitu- 
tion could not escape conversion to democratic uses. 
Although the fathers imagined that they were 
making the government on the old Whig model, 
they were only copying its external form. In 
reality, the Whig theory of government was a fic- 
tion masking the transfer of administrative author- 
ity from the crown to parliament. The attachment 
of the English people to kingship was such that 
politicians were bound to defer to it, just as poli- 
ticians in our day are bound to maintain that their 
proposals are thoroughly constitutional and realize 
the true intent of the fathers. The Whigs, in 
their way, were as sincere in their loyalty to the 
crown as the Tories, but after the Revolution of 
1689 England was really ruled by the landed aris- 
tocracy. The personal rule which George III 
exercised did not proceed so much from the author- 
ity of the crown as from its influence. It was the 
rule, not of a king, but of a political boss, depend- 
ent upon corrupt inducements and transient com- 
binations. 1 The crown, lords, and commons were 

1 " The power of the crown, almost dead and rotten as prerog- 
ative, has grown up anew, with much more strength and far less 



) 



68 ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POLITICS 

not in fact distinct and independent depositaries 
of authority ; for the landed gentry served as a con- 
nective tissue, enfolding the branches of govern- 
ment and establishing a centralized control. Seats 
in Parliament were almost personal property, and 
were frequently sold as such. Elections, as a rule, 
were a mere matter of form. Contests were rare. 
In the first general election held in George Ill's 
reign there were contests only in two counties and 
sixteen boroughs of England, and none at all in 
Scotland or in Wales. 1 At the beginning of the 
present century, of 658 members of Parliament, 
487 were virtually nominated by peers or wealthy 
squires. 

Whatever unity or efficiency of administration 
existed in the national government when it was 
first established was due to the fact that the gen- 
try controlled the government in all its branches. 
Hence the machine did actually go. The French 
revolutionary constitution of 1791, which was 
framed with the same idea of separating the exec- 
utive and legislative powers, broke down at once 
for want of such coordinating social influences. 
Similar failures have attended almost every attempt 
to imitate the constitution of the United States. 
The constitutional checks clog the machine. 
Deadlocks are broken by executive decree, and it 

odium, under the name of influence." Burke's Present Discon- 
tents, 1770. 

1 Jephson's The Platform, Vol. I., p. 16. 



CLASS RULE 69 

speedily becomes manifest that the true constitution 
is a military oligarchy. The history of Central and 
South American republics affords numerous exam- 
ples of this process. 

The class supremacy dexterously reasserted by 
the gentry was, however, doomed to destruction. 
The English gentry had to do with a settled popu- 
lation, trained to habits of deference and unable 
to escape from landlord control. But the Amer- 
ican gentry were very differently situated. Dur- 
ing the greater portion of the colonial period, the 
pressure of the French and Indians upon the Eng- 
lish settlements confined the field, so that the pres- 
tige of the gentry could not be seriously impaired. 
But with the expulsion of the European powers, 
and the driving back of the Indians, a profound 
change in social conditions ensued. The land 
was practically illimitable in extent, and coercive 
social arrangements were impracticable, as the 
fathers soon discovered. " We need as all nations 
do," wrote Fisher Ames to Rufus King in 1802, 
"the compression on the outside of our circle of 
a formidable neighbor, whose presence shall at 
all times excite stronger fears than demagogues 
can inspire the people with towards their govern- 
ment." 1 The actual conditions were such as to 
favor democratic concessions. The desire to obtain 
settlers caused inducements, which early took the 

1 Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, Vol. IV., p. 106. 






V 

JO ORIGINS OF AMERICAN POIITICS 

shape of offers of political franchises. 1 The restric- 
tions upon the suffrage on which the framers of the 
Constitution had depended, as guaranteeing the 
political control of the gentry, soon began to loosen. 
The breach between society and politics, which was 
sure to occur when political influence ceased to be a 
class privilege of the gentry, was not long delayed. 2 
Hamilton lamented the growing indifference of the 
better class of people to the exercise of their suf- 
frage much in the style so common nowadays. 
That breach was destined to expand until the hon- 
orable title of politician should carry with it a social 

1 As early as 1681 William Penn set forth among the attractions 
which his province of Pennsylvania offered to settlers that " they 
will have the right of voting, not only for the election of the 
magistrates of the place in which they live, but also for the mem- 
bers of the provincial council and the general assembly, which two 
bodies, conjointly with the governor, formed the sovereign power." 
The desire for settlers in the colonies was so strong that one of the 
grievances specified in the Declaration ot Independence was that 
the king put obstacles in the way of emigration. The operation 
of this desire has had marked effects upon American institutions. 
Fourteen states give foreigners the right to vote on the declaration 
of an intention to be naturalized. 

2 The danger was foreseen by the framers of the Constitution. 
Dickinson remarked that the freeholders were " the best guardians 
of liberty, and the restrictions of the right (of suffrage) to them 
was a necessary defence against the dangerous influence of those 
multitudes without property and without principle with which our 
country, like all others, will in time abound." The qualifications in 
the different states were so various that it was found impossible to 
agree on any uniform rule, and the constitution therefore simply 
adopts in every state the voting qualifications prescribed in elec- 
tions for representatives in the state legislature. 



CLASS RULE 7 1 

opprobrium and what is known as good society 
would hold itself aloof from politics or merely invade 
it at intervals. 

The gentry did not, however, lose their control , 
until they had founded the government and estab- 
lished agencies for operating its machinery in lieu \ ^ 
of those which their class interests had provided. 
Parties were founded whose organization was gradu- 
ally to develop a strength and an elaboration equal 
to the intricate tasks imposed by the complex nature 
of the government. The rigid framework of the 
Constitution forced political development to find 
its outlet in extra-constitutional agencies, bringing 
the executive and legislative branches under a 
common control, despite the constitutional theory. 
The new control was to be essentially as aristo- 
cratic as the old, for the political class is none the 
less an aristocracy, although its muniments do not 
consist of social privilege or territorial endowment, 
but rest upon proficiency in the management of 
party organization too complex for any save pro- 
fessional experts to handle. The history of Ameri- 
can politics verifies Burke's remark, that "an aris- r 
tocracy is the most natural thing in the world." 



PART II 

POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 



CHAPTER VI 

SETTING UP THE GOVERNMENT 

The new government patterned its behavior as 
closely as possible after the English style. Hamil- 
ton drew up for the President a scheme of etiquette, 
imitating royal exclusiveness. " In Europe," he 
said, " ambassadors only have direct access to the 
chief magistrate. Something very near what pre- 
vails there would, in my opinion, be right. ... I 
have thought that the members of the Senate 
should also have a right of individual access on 
matters relative to the public administration. In 
England and France peers of the realm have this 
right." But the Representatives were not entitled 
to such a privilege. 1 

The address to Congress, with which Washing- 
ton opened the session, was couched in the style 
of the speech from the throne. At the first session 
there was some talk of setting up a sort of throne 

1 Hamilton's Works, Vol. IV., p. 3. 
72 



SETTING UP THE GOVERNMENT 73 

for him in the senate chamber, but the project did 
not take well and it was dropped. He used the 
Vice-President's chair instead, and the Representa- 
tives went to the senate chamber to hear him, as 
the Commons proceed to the House of Lords on 
similar occasions. He addressed himself to both 
bodies, or either, as the nature of his remarks sug- 
gested. The tone was personal, such as a king 
might use. In his speech opening Congress at its 
first session, referring to his constitutional duty 
of recommending to their consideration such meas- 
ures as he should deem necessary and expedient, 
he expressed his appreciation of " the talents, the 
rectitude, and patriotism which adorn the charac- 
ters selected to devise and adopt them." In open- 
ing the next session, he told the Representatives : 
" I saw with peculiar pleasure, at the close of the 
last session, the resolution entered into by you, 
expressive of your opinion that an adequate pro- 
vision for the support of the public credit is a 
matter of high importance to the national honor 
and prosperity. In this sentiment I entirely con- 
cur. And, to a perfect confidence in your best 
endeavors to devise such a provision as will be 
truly consistent with the ends, I add an equal reli- 
ance on the cheerful cooperation of the other 
branch of the legislature." 

Congress, too, conformed to English precedents 
in its procedure. The houses would vote a joint 
address in reply, containing a due amount of per- 



74 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

sonal compliment. The members trooped to the 
President's " audience chamber," and the presi- 
dent of the Senate delivered the address, where- 
upon the President would renew the assurances 
of his distinguished consideration. 1 

It is pathetic to read the accounts which have 
reached us of the embarrassments of General 
Washington in his conscientious discharge of these 
irksome duties. The explosion of wrath described 
by Jefferson in his "Anas," when Washington 
swore he would rather be living on his farm than 
be emperor of the universe, 2 was doubtless the 
expression of the dearest wish of his heart. 3 Mac- 
lay tells us that when Washington made his first 
address to Congress, he was "agitated and embar- 
rassed more than ever he was by the levelled 
cannon or the pointed musket." A similar spec- 
tacle was presented when Congress waited on 
him to deliver their address in response. Maclay 
says : — 

"The President took his reply out of his coat 

1 The joint rules adopted by the First Congress provided " that 
when the Senate and House of Representatives shall judge it proper 
to make a joint address to the President it shall be presented to him 
in his audience chamber, by the President of the Senate, in the 
presence of the Speaker and both houses." 

2 Jefferson's Writings (Ford's edition), Vol. I., p. 254. 

3 When John Adams was inaugurated he was impressed by 
Washington's intense gratification on quitting office. Adams wrote 
to his wife : " Methought I heard him say, ' Ay ! I am fairly out, and 
you fairly in; see which of us will be the happiest.' " 



SETTING UP THE GOVERNMENT 75 

pocket. He had his spectacles in his jacket pocket, 
having his hat in his left hand and his paper in 
his right. He had too many objects for his hands. 
He shifted his hat between his forearm and the 
left side of his breast. But taking his spectacles 
from the case embarrassed him. He got rid of 
this small distress by laying the spectacle case on 
the chimney-piece. . . . Having adjusted his spec- 
tacles, which was not very easy considering the 
engagements of his hands, he read the reply with 
tolerable exactness and without much emotion." 

Many a time must this honest, single-minded 
Virginia gentleman have deplored the fate which 
made such pretence his duty, when in the ordinary 
course of affairs he should have had a right to 
expect that he would be living in comfort on his 
plantation, engaged in the country employments 
and recreations of which he was so fond. Mrs. 
Washington also had to exchange the genial hos- 
pitality and easy manners of Virginia for a stiff 
etiquette and a social parade which made her the 
target of disparaging gossip. 1 And while Wash- 
ington, with his best endeavor, thus played his 
part in this caricature of kingship, it was quite 
ineffectual. There was no historical prestige at- 
taching to his office ; there were no fixed social 
gradations to buttress his dignity ; he had no rev- 
enue nor patronage, save what Congress chose to 
create for him. His brand-new authority was 

1 Maclay records a characteristic sample. Journal, p. 73. 



y6 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

destitute of the sanctions which attach to royal 
prerogative and it inspired no awe. Within the 
limit of its constitutional powers, Congress might 
decide for itself how it would treat the President. 
The matter would be determined wholly by its own 
disposition. That disposition was not hostile, but 
it was very suspicious. In addition to the usual 
fear of subjects as to what rulers might do if given 
the opportunity, there was a strong apprehension 
that the Federal leaders were hankering after some- 
thing grand and splendid in the way of government, 
as close to the monarchical standard as possible. 
We have a vivid picture of this attitude of mind 
in the diary kept by William Maclay, one of the 
senators from Pennsylvania, an honest, well-mean- 
ing man, who came to Congress without any 
previous share in the councils of the Federal man- 
agers. The bent of his mind was critical from the 
first. The measures to which the national politi- 
cians were forced to resort in managing Congress 
offended him and inspired personal dislikes which 
he records with amusing simplicity. Jefferson has 
"a rambling and vacant look" and "his discourse 
partook of his personal demeanor." " He had been 
long enough abroad to catch the tone of Euro- 
pean folly." Knox has "a bacchanalian figure." 
" Hamilton has a very boyish, giddy manner, and 
Scotch-Irish people could well call him a 'skite.' ' 
John Adams, who had been so much abroad that 
he felt warranted in giving the Senate occasional 






SETTING UP THE GOVERNMENT J J 

instructions on the way things were done in Europe, 
the diarist cannot mention without an expression 
of disgust. He " has a very silly kind of laugh." 
There "sat Bonny John Adams ever and anon 
mantling his visage with the most unmeaning sim- 
per that ever dimpled the face of folly." Madison 
is "His Littleness." "There is an obstinacy, a 
perverse peevishness, a selfishness, which shuts 
him up from free communication." General 
Washington himself, as the associate of such men, 
becomes an object of increasing suspicion. At 
last the diarist declares : " If there is treason in 
the wish, I retract it, but would to God this same 
General Washington were in Heaven ! We would 
not then have him brought forward as the constant 
cover to every un-constitutional and ir-republican 
act." 

With such a temper in Congress, attempts to 
establish usages requiring a habit of deference on 
its part, were doomed to failure. The design of 
using the Senate as a privy council was baffled 
as soon as tried. Maclay gives a lively account 
of the affair. Washington entered the Senate 
chamber and took the Vice-President's chair. He 
informed the Senate that he had called for their 
advice and consent to some propositions respect- 
ing the treaty with the southern Indians and had 
brought the Secretary of War along to explain the 
business. General Knox produced some papers, 
which were read. Washington's presence em- 



yS POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

barrassed the Senate. Finally a motion was made 
to refer the papers to a committee, and there was 
some debate for and against. Maclay spoke in 
favor of doing business by committee. The dia- 
rist continues : " As I sat down, the President of 
the United States started up in a violent fret. 
'This defeats every purpose of my coming here,' 
were the first words that he said. He then went 
on that he had brought his Secretary of War with 
him to give every necessary information ; that the 
Secretary knew all about the business, and yet he 
was delayed and could not go on with the matter." 
Finally, the President said that he would have no 
objection to postponing further consideration until 
the ensuing Monday, but he did not understand 
the matter of commitment. There were awkward 
pauses. "We waited for him to withdraw," says 
the diarist. " He did so with a discontented air." 

r It did not take much of such business to deter 
Washington from treating the Senate as his privy 

I council. He finally had to do what every Presi- 
dent has done since — make his treaties first, and 
submit them to the Senate afterwards, for ratifica- 
tion. The comfortable seclusion of this practice, 
once enjoyed, would not willingly be given up. 
In 1 8 1 3 the Senate invited the attendance of the 
President to consult on foreign affairs, but Madison 
declined the invitation. 

The breakdown of the privy council functions 
i of the Senate had an important result in clearing 



SETTING UP THE GOVERNMENT 79 

the way for the development of the Cabinet. It 
was generally supposed at the time of the adop- 
tion of the Constitution that the administration 
would practically consist of the President and the 
Senate acting in conjunction. 1 If the President 
had found in the Senate a congenial body of 
advisers, so that treaties and appointments to 
office would have been made in conference with 
it, so much of the policy of the administration 
would thus have been brought within the habitual 
purview of the Senate that the natural tendency 
would have been to draw in the rest likewise. The 
language of the Constitution would favor that ten- 
dency, while on the other hand the Constitution 
is altogether ignorant of the President's Cabinet, 
which actually became his privy council. The idea 
that the heads of the executive departments are 
the personal appointees of each President, the 
chiefs of party administration, did not at first 
exist. 2 It was assumed that their position was 

1 Mason, of Virginia, refused to sign the report of the constitu- 
tional convention because it provided for the rule of an aristocracy. 
He objected to "the substitution of the Senate in place of an exec- 
utive council and to the powers vested in that body." Madison's 
Works, Congressional edition, Vol. I., p. 355. In the South Caro- 
lina convention James Lincoln said : " Pray who are the United 
States? A president and four or five senators." 

2 This explains why neither Jefferson nor his opponents thought 
there was anything dishonorable in his retention of office while 
stirring up opposition to the policy of the administration. Jefferson 
continued in office from a sense of public duty for some time after 
he wanted to retire. The idea that by so doing he precluded him- 



80 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

non-partisan and that their tenure of office would 
be the same as that of other officials, which was 
then regarded as one of permanency during good 
behavior. Hence the Constitution conferred upon 
the President as a special privilege, authority to 
"require the opinion, in writing, of the principal 
officer in each of the executive departments, upon 
any subject relating to the duties of their respec- 
tive offices." The incongruous superfluity of that 
provision, since constitutional usage has made the 
selection of Cabinet officers the President's indi- 
vidual prerogative, and has made their tenure of 
office subject to his pleasure, shows that the actual 
course taken in the development of the govern- 
ment was not altogether anticipated, although the 
intentional flexibility of the Constitution, as regards 
executive power, gave it an easy permission. 

All the members of Washington's Cabinet except 
Hamilton were of the opinion that Congress could 
not communicate with the heads of departments 

self from carrying on an agitation in support of his views of public 
policy did not occur to him or his friends, even the most high- 
minded of them. The theory was that the president, like the king, 
was above party, so that the idea of treachery towards him or 
breach of obligation in party behavior had no place. It was the 
same way in England at the same period. Ministers in the same 
Cabinet might represent opposing party interests and endeavor to 
undermine one another. But conduct like Jefferson's in a states- 
man of our own times would be thought basely dishonorable. The 
same observations apply to Hamilton's conduct in maintaining a 
secret control over Adams' administration by his influence with the 
Cabinet officials. 



SETTING UP THE GOVERNMENT 8 1 

except through the President. Hamilton, who 
uniformly acted on his maxim of practical politics 
that "the public business must in some way or 
other, go forward," : paid no attention to the scru- 
ples of theorists, but entered at once into direct 
relations with Congress. From the first, he as- 
sumed the functions of a crown minister to the 
fullest extent which circumstances would allow, 
and his example was soon followed by all the 
other members of the Cabinet. 2 He organized his 
department with the view of making it the organ 
of Congress in the preparation of financial meas- 
ures. 3 The great series of measures by which he 
established the finances of the nation were ad- 
dressed by him directly to the House of Represen- 
tatives. All his acts consist with the assumption 
that relations between the heads of the depart- 
ments and Congress should be practically the 

1 The Federalist, No. 22. 

2 Maclay describes a visit by Jefferson to the Senate chamber to 
advise the Senate to make a lump appropriation for the diplomatic 
service to be apportioned according to the discretion of the Presi- 
dent. Maclay's Journal, p. 272. 

3 The act establishing the Treasury department became law, 
September 2, 1 789. The nomination of Hamilton as Secretary of the 
Treasury was not sent to the Senate until September 11. But for 
months previous he had been active in organizing the government, 
and the act was drawn in accordance with his ideas. The Federal- 
ist, No. 36, written by Hamilton, forecasts the relations of the 
department to Congress proposed by the act and also indicates that 
the plan of assuming the debts of the states had already been con- 
ceived by him. 

G 



82 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

same as between the king's ministers and Parlia- 
ment. He became the premier of the ministry, 
the channel of communication between the execu- 
tive and the legislature. 1 This adherence to Eng- 
lish precedents appears not only in the manner, 
but in the character of his work. His scheme for 
funding the public debt, his plan for a sinking fund, 
and his proposals for the charter of a national bank, 
all show recourse to English methods. 2 The power- 
ful influence which the Bank of England had exer- 
cised in upholding the Whig government after the 
English Revolution of 1689, made a suggestion 
that could not be ignored in devising means to 

1 There was some practical recognition of his position as such. 
For instance, Jefferson, who was himself Secretary of State, wrote 
to Hamilton to ask what the Senate would do in regard to certain 
proposals for a treaty with Algiers. Hamilton's Works, Vol. IV., 
p. 215. Not the Secretary of War, but Hamilton, wrote to the 
House " that it is the opinion of the secretary for the department 
of war, that it is expedient and necessary that the United States 
should retain and occupy West Point." Works, Vol. II., p. 82. 
It was Hamilton's practice to revise and alter important state 
papers prepared by the other Cabinet officers. In a communication 
to the Attorney General he advised various changes in a paper 
draughted by him, and even told him that " there appears to me 
too much tartness in various parts." Works, Vol. IV., p. 544. The 
extent to which Hamilton's activity pervaded and controlled all 
the executive departments is extraordinary and it is not to be 
wondered at that Jefferson should have been chagrined and that 
Madison should have complained of Hamilton's " mentorship to the 
commander-in-chief." 

2 For the evidence see Dunbar on " Some Precedents Followed 
by Alexander Hamilton," Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oc- 
tober, 1888. 



SETTING UP THE GOVERNMENT 83 

brace and stay the new government. The national 
bank was founded as much as a political engine as 
a financial instrumentality. The assumption by 
the nation of the state debts contracted during 
the Revolutionary War, had the twofold purpose 
of diminishing state taxation, so as to clear the 
field for the operation of the revenue laws of the 
nation, and of creating a national debt which would 
be " a cement to the union." With a large body 
of national creditors in existence, distributed 
throughout the Union, it was certain that there 
would be an extensive class of citizens, who would 
have a direct interest in seeing that a ship of state 
carrying such valuable freight should be well found 
and safely handled. 

Hamilton's active initiative would not, however, 
have carried matters far, had it not been supple- 
mented by direct personal management. The 
public business does not manage itself any more 
than any other business, and pure reason figures 
in it as little as in human affairs generally. Poli- 
ticians have to deal with human nature not as it 
ought to be, but as it is. The ordinary motives 
and propensities are more apt to be mean than 
heroic, so that any man engaged in business must 
at times admit expedients which have no moral 
dignity to commend them. In the ordinary affairs 
of life allowance is made for stress of circum- 
stances, and the fact is recognized that a man of 
honor may be compelled to make what is called a 



84 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

choice of evils, although it is in truth the selection 
of a right course in a complicated moral situation. 
But owing to the curious way in which the public 
business is idealized by public sentiment, no allow- 
ance is made to politicians, and their acts are 
measured by contemporary opinion according to 
the abstract ethics which everybody is able to 
apply to other people. However, in the politics of 
the English race, ethical theory does not control 
practice in public affairs any more than in ordinary 
business. Their institutions have not been made 
by rule, but have grown, having their roots in race 
motives and taking their characteristic shape from 
circumstances of development. In the fulness of 
time it appears that this growth has had a moral 
order of its own, but the discovery comes from 
the appreciation of posterity, and furious censure is 
apt to be the lot of those whose activities sustained 
the process of that growth which a later age ad- 
mires. For all that, there never have been lacking 
statesmen of the stuff to endure whatever obloquy 
the discharge of the practical duties of their office 
may incur. The case of Hamilton is one of the 
most remarkable examples of this political virtue 
which history affords. True, such Stoic intre- 
pidity is not rare in politicians of the English 
breed. Among the statesmen of the Georgian 
era, there were those who equalled Hamilton in 
this respect, but they had compensations which 
he did not have. In England, the government was 



SETTING UP THE GOVERNMENT 85 

rich and the management of it lucrative. Men 
could not only make fortunes for themselves, but 
could provide well for their relatives and friends. 
The peculiarity of Hamilton's case is that while 
he was organizing the government, establishing its 
finances, and performing prodigies of intellectual 
effort in the service of the public, to be repaid by 
calumny and abuse, he was at the same time sac- 
rificing his legal practice and professional advance- 
ment for an office paying him $3000 a year, in 
an age of lavish personal expenditure and social 
ostentation. 

The scale of Hamilton's operations seemed co- 
lossal in his day, and to men who did not share 
his penetration in discerning the extent of national 
resources, his measures for funding the public debt 
seemed like fastening a millstone to the neck of 
the infant nation. The vastness of his plans gave 
a correspondingly wide scope to the operations of 
speculators, the advance in the value of public 
securities opening a rich field of gain. Of course 
the cry was raised that these speculative opportu- 
nities, inevitably incident to any restoration of 
public credit, were the object of Hamilton's policy. 
He was accused of setting up an engine of cor- 
ruption to control the legislature and destroy the 
purity and simplicity of republican institutions. 
The political literature of the time is full of refer- 
ences to Hamilton's "corrupt squadron" in 
Congress, his " gladiators " who by their venal 



86 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

cooperation beat down the opposition of the honest 
and independent members. Such accusations are 
the lot of every statesman who has to devise 
great financial measures. In our own times Sec- 
retary Sherman had to move through a storm of 
abuse in accomplishing the resumption of specie 
payments, and a like tempest raged around Secre- 
tary Carlisle in maintaining the integrity of treas- 
ury obligations. But no statesman has ever had 
to contend against so virulent an opposition with 
such slender resources as Alexander Hamilton. 

Maclay gives an acrid account of Hamilton's 
negotiation with members of Congress for support 
to his measures. Various combinations of inter- 
est were tried and at last the greedy squabble 
over the site of the national capital afforded him 
the necessary leverage. There was really more 
active concern in Congress about that matter than 
about the national finances. Even the austere 
Maclay remarks, that with Dr. Rush he had 
" puffed John Adams in the papers and brought 
him forward for Vice-President," because " we 
knew his vanity and hoped by laying hold of it to 
render him useful among the New England men 
in our scheme of bringing Congress to Pennsyl- 
vania." Maclay relates that Madison made a 
motion reducing General St. Clair's salary as gov- 
ernor of the Western territory the very day the 
general had disparaged the claims of the Potomac 
site, although previously Madison had favored a 



/ 



SETTING UP THE GOVERNMENT 87 

larger amount. 1 The bill for assuming state 
debts was finally carried by means of a bargain 
arranged between Hamilton and Jefferson, the 
votes of a sufficient number of Southern members 
being obtained in return for Northern votes for 
the Potomac site. The foundations of the national 
government were laid by "log-rolling." 

Although Hamilton's assumption of leadership 
was made good for a time, from the start it met 
with an opposition which showed that it could not 
be permanent. The bill establishing the treasury 
department made it the duty of the Secretary " to 
digest and report plans for the improvement and 
management of the revenue, and for the support 
of the public credit." Page, of Virginia, immedi- 
ately moved to strike out that clause on the ground 
that "a precedent would be established which 
might be extended until ministers of the govern- 
ment should be admitted on that floor to explain 
and support the plans they had digested and re- 
ported, thereby laying the foundation for an aris- 
tocracy or a detestable monarchy." Madison 
defended the proposed grant of power on the 
ground that it would promote good administration, 
which was the chief end of government. Page's 
motion was defeated, but the word "prepare" was 
substituted for "report," and it was made evident 
that the open connection between administration 
and legislation would continue only so long as the 

1 Maclay's Journal, p. 150. 






/ 

88 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

House should choose to permit it. The temporary 
splice between the executive and legislative 
branches was too weak to stand party violence, 
and at this point the first attack was made when 
an opposition was organized and the formation of 
national parties began. Originally the only stand- 
ing committee of the House had been one on 
elections. Any matter on which the House de- 
sired information, whether a claim, petition, or 
memorial, was generally referred directly to the 
head of the proper department. When the House 
took up an attitude of hostility towards the Sec- 
retary of the Treasury, the system of standing 
committees, which has had such a monstrous 
development, was begun. In January, 1795, Ham- 
ilton quitted an office which had lost the functions 
that made it useful for his purposes. The effect 
of the changed relations upon the conduct of the 
public business was described with prophetic in- 
sight by Fisher Ames in a letter to Hamilton, two 
years after the latter's retirement from office : — 

" The heads of departments are chief clerks. 
Instead of being the ministry, the organs of the 
executive power, and imparting a kind of momen- 
tum to the operation of the laws, they are pre- 
cluded even from communicating with the House 
by reports. In other countries they may speak as 
well as act. We allow them to do neither. We 
forbid them even the use of a speaking-trumpet ; 
or more properly, as the Constitution has ordained 



SETTING UP THE GOVERNMENT 89 

that they shall be dumb, we forbid them to explain 
themselves by signs. Two evils, obvious to you, 
result from all this. The efficiency of government 
is reduced to a minimum — the proneness of a 
popular body to usurpation is already advancing to 
its maximum ; committees already are the minis- 
ters ; and while the House indulges a jealousy of 
encroachment in its functions, which are properly 
deliberative, it does not perceive that these are 
impaired and nullified by the monopoly as well as 
the perversion of information by these committees. 
The silly reliance of our haughty House and Con- 
gress prattlers on a responsibility of members to 
the people, &c, is disgraced by every page in the 
history of popular bodies." * 

The attempt to maintain the unity of adminis- 
tration by means of ministerial leadership had 
failed. The political organism was constrained to 
develop new faculties for that purpose. The 
necessary control was resumed through the agency 
of party. 

1 Hamilton's Works, Vol. VI., p. 201. 



J 



CHAPTER VII 

THE ORIGIN OF PARTIES 

The bane of the Whig ideal of government was 
party spirit. It introduced principles of association 
inconsistent with the constitutional scheme. Be- 
cause of party spirit gentlemen betrayed the 
interests of their order and menaced the peace of 
society by demagogic appeals to the common 
people. Instead of the concert of action which 
should exist between the departments of govern- 
ment as the result of a patriotic purpose common 
to all, devotion to party was substituted, and the 
constitutional depositaries of power were converted 
into the fortifications of party interest. 

Throughout the eighteenth century, party was 
regarded as a gangrene, a cancer, which patriotic 
statesmen should combine to eradicate. This 
chord of sentiment was skilfully touched by Boling- 
broke in his influential treatise, "The Patriot 
King," in which he eloquently portrayed the char- 
acter of the just ruler who should break down 
party control and command for the state the 
service of all good men. The policy of George III. 
was formed upon this ideal, and it influenced the 
conduct of the greatest statesmen of the age. The 

90 



■ THE ORIGIN OF PARTIES 91 

elder Pitt prevented the Rockingham Whigs from 
establishing a stable government by holding aloof 
on the ground that he thought " any change insuffi- 
cient which did not comprehend or annihilate every 
party in the kingdom." x He finally upset the 
Whig government by consenting to take office at 
the head of. a non-partisan administration. This 
administration — whose power was so compacted 
by crown influence that when Pitt himself turned 
against it his tremendous attacks were ineffectual 
— brought on the American war and lost to the 
British crown thirteen colonies and eight islands. 

Edmund Burke splendidly defended the consti- 
tutional function of party organization, but it was 
the fashion to regard him as a clever Irish advent- 
urer in Lord Rockingham's service, repaying his 
patron by advocating views which suited the 
designs of a nobleman who wanted to restore the 
principles of political monopoly and exclusion on 
which Walpole had acted. Burke defined- party 
as " a body of men united, for promoting by their 
joint endeavors the national interest, upon some 
particular principle on which they are all agreed." 2 
This is the modern English doctrine, but in 1770, 
when Burke propounded it, the attempt to put such 
a gloss on the machinations of cabal and faction 
was treated with scorn. The idea of basing gov- 
ernment on party seemed like selecting poison as 

1 Lecky's History of England, Vol. IV., pp. 256, 297. 

2 The Present Discontents. 



92 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

a diet. A section of the Whig party, in whose 
ranks were conspicuous some statesmen distin- 
guished in a corrupt age for their rigid personal 
integrity, fought party government to the last. 
The Whig ministry, which in 1783 succeeded to 
power after the British defeats in America had 
temporarily destroyed Tory ascendency, was shat- 
tered by a conflict on this point. Shelburne, who 
stubbornly resisted the efforts of the Rockingham 
Whigs to organize the Cabinet as a party interest, 
told the House of Commons that he had imbibed 
the principles of "his master in politics, the Earl of 
Chatham, who had always declared that this coun- 
try ought not to be governed by any party or 
faction, and that if it were to be so governed the 
constitution must necessarily expire." 1 

In fact, the principle of party government was 
never recognized in England until it was firmly 
established in practice, and it had become manifest 
that, despite all theory to the contrary, any other 
mode of government was quite impracticable. The 
acceptance of the party system involved a profound 
alteration in the constitutional theory. The old 
Whig doctrine of checks and balances of power 
became obsolete. It was found by experience that 
more efficient checks and balances were inherent 
in the constitution of party itself, since it is con- 
stantly obliged to consider all shades of opinion in 
order to maintain its strength. The amassing of 

1 Lecky, Vol. IV., p. 256. 



THE ORIGIN OF PARTIES 93 

the sovereignty of the nation in one organ of gov- 
ernment, which according to the old theory was 
the very essence of tyranny, became the very 
essence of popular rule. The modern theory is 
thus stated by Bagehot: "The English consti- 
tution is founded on the principle of choosing 
a single sovereign authority and making it 
good." 

The old Whig abhorrence of party spirit raged v 
in the bosoms of the fathers. It is a topic to 
which frequent reference is made in their speeches 
and correspondence. The Federalist abounds 
with remarks on "the pestilential influence of 
party animosities." It forms the chief topic of 
Washington's farewell address to his countrymen. 
" There is an opinion," he says, " that parties in free 
countries are useful checks upon the administration 
of the government, and serve to keep alive the spirit 
of liberty. This within certain limits is probably 
true ; and, in governments of a monarchical class, 
patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with 
favor, on the spirit of party. But in those of a 
popular character, in governments purely elective, 
it is a spirit not to be encouraged." He re-states 
the Whig doctrine of " the necessity of reciprocal 
checks in the exercise of political power, by divid- 
ing and distributing it into different depositaries, 
and constituting each the guardian of the public 
weal against the invasions of the others." He 
describes in solemn language the "horrid enor- 



94 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

mities " which party spirit may perpetrate against 
these constitutional safeguards of government. 

Innumerable echoes of that memorable appeal 
still reach the ears of the public. Non-partisan- 
ship is still preached as a civic duty, but it has 
never been reduced to practice and it never will 
be. The reason is very simple. No law of human 
nature is better known than that action is the 
correlative of desire. The very existence of 
public opinion implies the seeking of means for 
giving effect to it in the conduct of public affairs, 
and in a free country this produces party action. 
But little reflection is needed to show that what 
are called non-partisan movements are really new 
party combinations, and the only distinction 
marked by the phrase is that the purpose is special 
and transient. 

As with every organism, the natural tendency 
of party is to obtain sustenance wherever it can. 
It appeals to the follies and passions, as well as 
to the virtues, of human nature, so that its activity 
is as productive of evil manifestations as well as 
of good as the capacity of human nature allows. 
Hence it always presents aspects revolting to 
upright men. In particular, its subordination of 
all other considerations to the needs of its own 
organization, is accompanied by a disregard of 
absolute standards of worth, which is peculiarly 
offensive to those who do not feel, or sympathize 
with, its necessities. This defect in accommodation 



THE ORIGIN OF PARTIES 95 

of party functions to ethical ideals is ever a source 
of complaint, and it has inspired magnificent out- 
bursts of scorn from poets and moralists. Neverthe- 
less, there never has been a time, since the colonies 
had a life of their own, when party spirit was not ac- 
tive in this country, and never more so than when 
formal party divisions were temporarily effaced. A 
party which grows so great as to destroy regular 
opposition tends to split and fall apart from internal 
repulsions, no longer counteracted by external 
pressure. Such times are marked by an abounding 
partisanship, displaying itself in violent faction 
strife, eventually producing new party combina- 
tions. 

A period of this kind was brought on by the 
success of the Revolution. The Tory party was 
destroyed, and the Whigs were left undisputed 
masters of the field, but the triumphant party was 
rent by faction animosities excited during the 
course of the struggle. In order to understand 
the situation it is necessary to consider in some 
detail the political side of the War of Indepen- 
dence. 1 

Congress was not instituted as a regular govern- 
ment and was altogether unfit to exercise the 
functions which devolved upon it. It assumed 

1 The chief authority for the statements which follow is Wharton's 
" Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence," a government publi- 
cation. There is a vivid account of the characteristics of the 
Revolutionary period in W. G. Sumner's " Alexander Hamilton." 



$6 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

the control of the national finances, the regulation 
of the army and navy, the appointment of public 
officials, and in fine the entire administration of 
public affairs. The only practicable way in which 
a body of notables, equal in rank and importance, 
opinionated and contentious, could handle such a 
fund of patronage was by continual bargain and 
intrigue. Congress sat in private, and it was 
secluded from the control of any public opinion 
save that of its own circle. The possession of 
such opportunities in a position of irresponsible 
control subjected character to a dangerous strain, 
and there is evidence that deterioration did take 
place. Expressions of the sharpest censure might 
be collected from contemporary writings. In 
the summer of 1778 a letter written by Henry 
Laurens, then president of Congress, in which he 
referred to " scenes of venality, peculation and 
fraud," was intercepted by the British and pub- 
lished in the London papers. There was always 
profusion and waste at the seat of government 
however the army might suffer. The festivities 
which enclosed the sittings of Congress were 
never more extravagant than during the darkest 
period of the struggle. Washington wrote that 
"party disputes and personal quarrels are the 
great business of the day ; whilst the momentous 
concerns of an empire, a great and accumulating 
debt, ruined finances, depreciated money and 
want of credit, which in its consequences is the 



THE ORIGIN OF PARTIES 97 

want of everything, are but secondary considera- 
tions and postponed from day to day and from 
week to week, as if our affairs wore the most 
promising aspect. . . . And yet an assembly, a 
concert, a dinner or a supper, will not only take 
men off from acting in this business, but even 
from thinking of it." The low repute of Congress 
injured the patriot cause in foreign estimation and 
repelled sympathy. The mainstay of American 
credit abroad was the great personal reputation of 
Benjamin Franklin and the marvellous ability with 
which he managed the interests of the infant 
republic. But had it not been for the energetic 
remonstrances of the French court, by representa- 
tions made through its minister at Philadelphia, 
Congress might have removed Franklin from his 
post at a most critical juncture. The generalship 
of Washington was admired by the ablest Euro- 
pean critics, among them Frederick the Great ; 
but Washington, too, had to endure the hostility 
of a congressional cabal which came near remov- 
ing him from command. 

Still it would be a great mistake to infer that 
the inefficiency of Congress was due to any lack 
of honesty or patriotism. Its evil tendencies were 
the result of a defective organization. It was 
impossible for a body so constituted to act with 
the resolution and consistency necessary for suc- 
cessful administration, and in every branch of the 
public service the results were deplorable. Taxes 



) / 



98 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

being unpopular, the members eagerly caught up 
the idea that they could make money out of 
paper. Between June 23, 1775, and November 29, 
1779, bills to the amount of $200,000,000 were 
emitted and made a legal tender. Severe laws 
against the advance of prices, and refusal to accept 
this paper in lieu of money, were enacted. In ef- 
fect, such financiering was a vast confiscation of 
property for public use. Jefferson remarked, " It 
was a mode of taxation, the most oppressive of all 
because the most unequal of all." 1 The chief 
sufferers were, of course, the producers, — the 
laborers, the mechanics, the farmers. They were 
constantly being defrauded of their just dues, and 
the natural consequence was the rapid spread of 
disaffection. Goods were secreted, provisions hid 
away, and supplies withheld. In 1777, while Gen- 
eral Washington, with wretchedly inferior forces, 
was striving to keep the field against General 
Howe in Pennsylvania, he said that he felt as if 
he were in an enemy's country. The commissary 
department, which Congress insisted upon keeping 
under its thumb, seemed unable to do anything. 
Washington's troops were left to starve, while 
Howe was able to obtain fresh provisions in abun- 
dance. The paper-money plague cheated the 
troops, as it did all who gave service at a fixed rate 
of compensation. It became impossible to obtain 
recruits, and disaffection became prevalent in the 

1 Writings, Vol. IV., p. 165. 



THE ORIGIN OF PARTIES 99 

army. " No day, nor scarce an hour passes," wrote 
Washington, "without the offer of a resigned 
commission." 1 There was desertion from the 
American camp to the British army. 

Meanwhile any reform in administration was 
stubbornly resisted. The chief solicitude of Con- 
gress was to keep the army under civil control. 
Dread of the rise of a Cromwell haunted their 
minds. Hence, above all things, they resolved to 
control military appointments and prevent the 
organization of a regular army. In 1776, John 
Adams, referring to the promotion of officers by 
Congress, said : " That interest, favor, private 
friendship, prejudice, may operate more or less 
in the present assembly is true. But where will 
you lodge this power ? To place it in the general 
would be more dangerous to the public liberty 
and not less liable to abuse." In 1777, he " hoped 
that Congress will elect annually all the general 
officers." Wharton remarks that " the leaders of 
the opposition, by holding the great military ap- 
pointments in the hands of Congress, by refus- 
ing adequate compensation to the soldiers, had 
much to do with protracting the war." The be- 
havior of Congress was such as to invite the very 
evil they feared. In letters written by confiden- 
tial agents of the British government it was 
said that Washington's only course in order to 
sustain himself would be to follow the example of 

1 Works, Vol. V., p. 201. 



100 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

Cromwell. Not until the cause of independence 
had been brought to the brink of ruin did Congress 
consent to the creation of independent executive 
departments for the management of finances, war, 
the marine, and foreign affairs. The triumph of 
the Revolution soon followed. 1 

By an ordinary law of political development, 
the efforts made to strengthen executive authority 
and the resistance thereto made by interests dis- 
turbed by change, tended to produce parties in the 
government, and doubtless would have done so had 
the government of the Confederation possessed 
a stable basis. As it was, there were antagonistic 
factions — the one administrative, the other parlia- 
mentary, which served as centres of party forma- 



1 Wharton regards the decisive victory over Cornwallis at York- 
town as the direct consequence of the improved financial admin- 
istration. A department of finance was established, and on March 
13, 1 781, Robert Morris was placed at its head. " He started with 
the position that on taxation, full and equal, must the country 
depend for its ordinary income ; that until it showed its readiness 
to impose such taxation, it could not either honorably or success- 
fully borrow; that the issue of paper money must be stopped, and 
that a national bank should be established to equalize exchanges 
and meet sudden governmental exigencies. To the comparative 
success of his administration, in the face of an opposition the most 
bitter, is the final triumph of the Revolution to be largely attributed. 
Our income from taxation was greatly increased, the bank was 
prosperous, and France, encouraged by this, continued to make 
loans and forward supplies, without which the campaign of 
1 781-1782 could not have been effectively conducted." Vol. I., 
p. 289. 



¥ 

THE ORIGIN OF PARTIES IOI 

tion. In the one, the military group was prominent ; 
the other was wholly civilian. On the one side was 
the energetic desire to build up executive author- 
ity ; on the other, an habitual dread of arbitrary 
power. The parliamentary faction had it all their 
own way until their principles were discredited 
by the wretched results of their meddlesome 
incapacity, when there was a strong reaction in 
favor of communicating more executive vigor to 
the government. A class of national politicians, 
to which Jefferson and Madison belonged, intro- 
duced a more sensible tone of thought. It was 
the influence of this class which eventually prevailed 
upon Congress to establish executive departments. 
It was the alliance of this class with the military 
group which secured the adoption of the constitu- 
tion, and its features were chiefly their work. Both 
groups energetically cooperated in setting up and 
starting the new government. The successful es- ) 
tablishment of constitutional government was a 
break or starting-point, the natural consequence of 
which was a new alignment of parties. 

The rise of national parties is generally dated 
from the struggle over the adoption of the consti- 
tution ; but the nature of that struggle was such that 
it could not furnish an enduring basis of party ac- 
tion. When the constitution was adopted and put 
into operation, Anti-federalism, having been merely 
a policy of negation, was destitute of any principle 
of vitality. Party action had to find its place under 



102 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

the constitution, and make its issues on questions 
of constitutional interpretation and government 
policy. At the most, all that can be said is that 
the struggle over the adoption of the constitution 
engendered antipathies which supplied material 
for national party purposes ; but the distribution 
thereof was determined by the circumstances of the 
time when national parties were formed. The 
natural tendency of the defeated Anti-federal state 
factions was to recruit the party of national opposi- 
tion ; but when the Anti-federal leaders happened 
to be faction adversaries of the leaders of the 
national opposition, the tendency was just the other 
way. Hence the time came when Patrick Henry, 
who had resisted the constitution with all his might, 
and who had declared that he would " seize the first 
moment that offered for shaking off the yoke in a 
constitutional way," 1 was seen on the stump ex- 
cusing the alien and sedition laws and condemn- 
ing the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. Other 
prominent leaders of the opposition to the adop- 
tion of the constitution, among them Richard 
Henry Lee, Luther Martin, and Samuel Chase, 
also became high Federalists. On the other hand, 
Madison, Dickinson, and others, who took an active 
part in securing the adoption of the constitution, 
became prominent Republicans. Jefferson, their 
party leader, had been in sympathy with the 

1 Madison's Works, Vol. I., p. 402. 



THE ORIGIN OF PARTIES 103 

national movement, although out of the country 
at the time, and on his return had done service of 
essential value in getting the new government 
fairly started. 

It is, therefore, impossible to establish any con- 
nection between Anti-federalism and the Republi- 
can party organized by Jefferson, which implies 
party continuity. The truth is that the formation 
of national parties was inevitable from the antago- 
nistic views on national policy held by the politi- 
cal groups which cooperated in the adoption of the 
constitution. The situation was similar to that in 
England after the Revolution of 1688. Whigs and 
Tories cooperated in reconstructing the govern- 
ment ; but after the Act of Settlement they 
soon renewed their party strife as furiously as 
ever. So it was after the adoption of the consti- 
tution of the United States. As soon as the gov- 
ernment became sufficiently well established to 
relax the pressure of their common necessity, the 
groups began to draw apart. The purpose of the 
military group, and of those associated with them 
in interest and sympathy, was to make the national 
government strong and effective. This considera- 
tion presided over their calculations of the effect 
of measures. Their experience had been such as 
to concentrate their attention on the apparatus of 
government. On the contrary, the object of the 
other group of national politicians had been to set 
up an orderly government, but not a weighty one, 



j 



104 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

which might rest heavily upon the people. 1 Their 
ideal was an agricultural community, settled in its 
habits and steady in its ways, requiring no more 
apparatus of government than would suffice to sub- 
ject the common people to the magisterial super- 
vision of their natural protectors — the landed 
gentry. In his "Notes on Virginia," Jefferson 
said : " While we have land to labor, let us never 
wish to see our citizens occupied at a workshop or 
twirling a distaff. . . . Let our workshops remain 
in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and 
materials to workmen there than to bring them to 
the provisions and materials, and with them their 
manners and principles. . . . The mobs of great 
cities add just so much to the support of pure 
government as sores do to the strength of the 
human body." He brought up this point again 
when writing to Madison about the new constitu- 
tion. He said : " I think our governments will 
remain virtuous for many centuries, as long as 
they are chiefly agricultural ; and this they will be 
as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part 
of America. When they get piled up upon one 
another in large cities, as in Europe, they will 
become corrupt as in Europe." 2 

The manifest tendency of Hamilton's measures 
to develop banking, commercial, and manufacturing 

1 This explanation of the origin of parties adopts that given by 
Chief- Justice Marshall, who spoke from his own knowledge of the 
men and the times. See his Life of Washington, Vol. V., Chap. V. 

2 Jefferson's Writings, Vol. IV., p. 480. 



THE ORIGIN OF PARTIES 105 

interests seemed therefore to be a policy whose 
purpose was to corrupt and alter the character of 
the government. There was no lack of circum- 
stances to feed suspicion. Obstacles, which igno- 
rance and' perversity put in the way of plans for the 
benefit of the government, were the occasion of 
expressions of disgust in administration circles. 
Private talk among party managers is apt to be 
cynic in tone as regards the public. The courtiers 
of King Demos, like courtiers in general, revenge 
themselves for the servility which they have to 
assume in public, by private sneers at his majesty. 
It is doubtless quite true, as Jefferson reports in 
his "Anas," that talk at the executive mansion 
was disparaging of popular government as com- 
pared with the order and decency of royal gov- 
ernment ; but it does not follow that there was 
any idea of establishing royalty. Long after, 
when Hamilton had been for many years in his 
untimely grave, and the passions of party contro- 
versy had cooled, Jefferson acquitted Hamilton of 
any idea of subverting republican institutions ; but 
that was the accusation at the time. By a natural 
antithesis, Jefferson's party styled itself the Re- 
publicans. The supporters of the administration 
retained as their party name the title of Federalists, 
originally designating the advocates of the adop- 
tion of the constitution, but now used as implying 
that it was they who were defending and upholding 
the federal government against its enemies. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE RULING CLASS- DIVIDED 

Jefferson and his colleagues believed them- 
selves to be the genuine conservatives. "The Re- 
publican party wish to preserve the government 
in its present form," wrote Jefferson to Washing- 
ton in justification of their course. What they did 
do was to give a powerful impetus to democratic ten- 
dencies which were destined to transform the gov- 
ernment. Men who in the constitutional convention 
had descanted upon the evils of democracy, and 
had tried to leave as little room as possible for 
popular control over the government, cast aside 
their scruples when the only practicable way of 
maintaining their influence was to stir up the peo- 
ple against the government. Politicians employ 
their logic to defend the positions they feel im- 
pelled to take ; their action is the result of cir- 
cumstances operating upon their endowment of 
character and habits of thought. Their personal 
relation to the events of their times has much more 
to do with shaping their policy than any abstract 
theory of government which they may profess. 
English history notes that some of the greatest 
changes in government, some of the most radical 

106 



THE RULING CLASS DIVIDED 10 J 

principles of reform, have been introduced by con- 
servative parties acting from new considerations 
of interest on special occasions. Political structure 
grows like coral rock, the product of multitudinous 
activities incited by individual needs. 

The Republican leaders were very much in the 
position of the Rockingham Whigs in 1763, when, 
unable to make an effective resistance in Parlia- 
ment, they subsidized the demagogue John Wilkes 
and abetted a pamphlet and newspaper war on the 
administration. It was not possible for Jefferson 
to emulate the example of the wealthy nobles 
who gave Wilkes an annuity of ,£1000, but he 
assisted Callender by presents of money, and he 
gave Freneau an office in the state department, 
keeping him there despite Washington's complaint 
that the publications in Freneau's paper were 
"outrages on common decency." When men like 
Hamilton or Madison took a hand in the fray, 
they addressed themselves to people of their own 
class. On setting about a reply to Hamilton's 
defence of the foreign policy of the administration, 
Madison wrote to Jefferson : " None but intelligent 
readers will enter into such a controversy, and to 
their minds it ought principally to be accom- 
modated." The ephemeral journalism of the day, 
however, addressed a different public. Its object 
was to excite the passions. Lampoon and invec- 
tive were preferred to serious argument. Current 
events afforded plenty of material. The whole 



108 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

world was convulsed by the throes of the French 
Revolution, and in America the shocks produced 
waves of democratic excitement. The position of 
the administration was one of great perplexity, 
requiring caution and reserve, so that misrepre- 
sentation of its acts and purposes was easy. 

The distinct assumption of political functions 
by the newspaper press took place during the 
eighteenth century. Originally, newspapers were 
simply handy mediums of announcement. They 
were an improvement on the town crier. For 
them to engage in political discussion was out of 
harmony with traditional ideas of government. 
The criticism of politics, which now addresses 
itself to journalism, formerly found its outlet in 
pamphleteering. In England, every political tem- 
pest brought a shower of ballads, tracts, and pam- 
phlets, falling as thickly as autumn leaves. The 
artillery of the law was as ineffectual against such 
fugitive writings as it would be against a swarm 
of mosquitoes. The ministers of the crown found 
that the most practical course was to have their own 
corps of pamphleteers to wage war for them. The 
great mass of such publications was ephemeral 
rubbish, soon swept away ; but English literature 
reckons among its classics writings which origi- 
nally had a party purpose. Addison's famous 
poem "Blenheim" was written to order for the 
Whig ministry of the day, who wanted some verses 
on Marlborough's victory for popular circulation. 



THE RULING CLASS DIVIDED 109 

Most of Swift's writings are Tory pamphlets. His 
" Gulliver's Travels " continues to be a popular 
story-book, although the political satire, which origi- 
nally gave it piquancy, is no longer noticed. Some 
of the best works of Edmund Burke, which for all 
time will never cease to be profitable to men who 
give serious thought to problems of government, 
we owe to his activity as a Whig pamphleteer. 

It was inevitable that this species of writing 
would seek so convenient a medium of publication 
as the newspaper press as soon as possible; but 
the combination of newsgathering and political 
criticism had to encounter a formidable prejudice. 
Reports of the debates of Parliament, or comment 
on its proceedings, assailed a historic guarantee of 
public liberty. The character of institutions is 
really an attribute from the service which they 
render ; but the disposition to regard that character 
as inherent, causes them to be valued for their 
own sake when they have lost the use which made 
them valuable. Thoroughly honest and patriotic 
statesmen insisted upon the secrecy of parliament- 
ary proceedings long after it had ceased to be neces- 
sary as a protection of freedom of debate, and had 
become the shield of corruption. The intrusion of 
journalism into the field of politics was attended 
by violent struggles, but the public demand was 
so imperious that Parliament was literally beaten 
into submission. 

In the American colonies the censorship of the 



110 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

press had been very strict. Benjamin Franklin, 
in his autobiography, gives some amusing instances 
of his collisions with the authorities because of his 
audacity in venturing an occasional remark on pub- 
lic affairs. The Revolutionary movement freed the 
press. The practical convenience of such a medium 
for the expression of colonial opinion outweighed 
any theoretical objections. A stream of articles 
poured into the columns of the newspapers of the 
day. The celebrated " Farmer's Letters " of John 
Dickinson appeared in the Pennsylvania Chronicle. 
The pens of other leaders of the Revolution were 
busily employed in like manner. The practice con- 
tinued after the Revolution, and to a series of news- 
paper articles over the signature " Publius," written 
by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, to influence the 
action of the New York convention, we owe that 
great commentary on the constitution, commonly 
known as "The Federalist." Communications on 
public affairs from Cato, Camillus, Decius, Senex, 
Agricola, and such like, frequently appeared in the 
newspapers, until gradually political comment was 
recognized as an ordinary function of the newspaper 
press, and the editorial article became an estab- 
lished institution. In our own time, the transfor- 
mation of public sentiment has become so complete 
that there is a disposition to regard the press as 
being in some way responsible for the conduct of 
public affairs, and blame for defects of government 
is laid at its door. 



THE RULING CLASS DIVIDED III 

Federalism being essentially a movement for the 
restoration of the old order, the traditional ideas 
as to the place and duties of the press in a well- 
regulated government were revived. In one of 
his essays on government, Fisher Ames said : " The 
press is a new and certainly a powerful agent in 
human affairs. It will change societies ; but it is 
difficult to conceive how, by rendering men in- 
docile and presumptuous, it can change them for 
the better. . . . It has inspired ignorance with 
presumption, so that those who cannot be gov- 
erned by reason are no longer awed by authority." 
These forebodings soon seemed to be in course of 
rapid fulfilment. The highest privileges of Con- 
gress were violated with impunity. The constitu- 
tional right of members, that " for any speech or 
debate in either House they shall not be ques- 
tioned in any other place," was virtually annulled. 
The license of speech assumed by the papers was 
abominable to the supporters of the government. 
When the Republican journals began to charge that 
Washington was drawing more from the treasury 
than the law allowed, and were circulating forged 
letters to show that during the Revolutionary War 
he desired to submit to the king, whatever con- 
tempt might be felt for such attacks, the effect 
upon public opinion could not be ignored. The 
provocation was increased by the fact that the 
leading Republican journalists were men of alien 
birth: "a group of foreign liars," John Adams 



112 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

termed them. The growth of party spirit, which 
was regarded as destructive to constitutional gov- 
ernment, seemed to be a direct consequence of the 
tolerance shown to a seditious press. " The very 
idea of the power and the right of the people to 
establish government," said Washington in his 
farewell address, " presupposes the duty of every 
individual to obey the established government. All 
obstructions to the execution of the laws, all com- 
binations and associations under whatever plausible 
character, with the real design to direct, control, 
counteract, or awe the regular deliberations of the 
constituted authorities, are destructive of this fun- 
damental principle and of fatal tendency." 

It is necessary to understand this attitude of 
thought in order to comprehend the remarkable 
features which the politics of the times eventually 
presented. The behavior of the Federalist judges 
during Adams' administration would seem to be 
an amazing exhibition of headlong and reckless 
partisanship, if not viewed in the light of their 
ideas of constitutional privilege and duty. They 
were trying to uphold the traditional ideal of gov- 
ernment. They let no fair opportunity pass of 
instructing the people how monstrous and horrid 
a thing it was for them to rebel against magisterial 
control and disturb the constitutional balance of 
power among the departments of government by 
seditious attempts to interfere in the administra- 
tion of public affairs. The charge to a grand jury 



THE RULING CLASS DIVIDED 113 

at times became a political harangue. In western 
Pennsylvania, Judge Addison, of the state judi- 
ciary, delivered a series of charges on Jealousy of 
the Administration and Government, the Horrors 
of Revolution, etc., pointing out to the people what 
terrible things were likely to happen if they were 
not dutiful in their behavior towards constituted 
authority. General Washington, then in private 
life, was so pleased by Judge Addison's perform- 
ance that he sent a copy of the charge to friends 
for circulation. Chief Justice Ellsworth, in a charge 
to a Massachusetts grand jury, denounced " the 
French system-mongers, from the quintumvirate at 
Paris to the vice-president (Jefferson) and minor- 
ity in Congress as apostles of atheism and anarchy, 
bloodshed and plunder." 

The wave of popular indignation which swept 
the country when Talleyrand's attempt to black- 
mail the American envoys was made known to 
the public, temporarily prostrated the Republican 
party and gave the Federalists control of both 
Houses of Congress. The Federalist leaders seized 
the opportunity of suppressing that "fatal ten- 
dency " to which Washington had referred, by 
passing the alien and sedition laws. The President 
could now send out of the country such aliens as 
he might deem dangerous to the peace and safety 
of the United States. It was a crime, punishable 
by fine and imprisonment, to publish any false, 
scandalous, or malicious writings against the gov- 






114 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

ernment of the United States, or either House of 
Congress, or the President, with the intent to defame 
them or bring them into contempt or disrepute. 
Such legislation was quite in accord with the tradi- 
tional theory of government. Washington, in his 
correspondence, referred to it approvingly; and 
while Hamilton regarded it as impolitic, he did not 
question its constitutionality. The laws were vigor- 
ously enforced, despite popular clamor. To wag a 
loose tongue ran the risk of severe punishment. A 
Jerseyman named Baldwin was fined $100 for 
expressing a wish that the wad of a cannon dis- 
charged as a salute to President Adams had hit 
the broadest part of the President's breeches. 
Matthew Lyon, of Vermont, while canvassing for 
reelection to Congress, charged the President with 
" unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish 
adulation, and a selfish avarice." That cost him 
four months in jail and a fine of $1000. For a 
time it seemed as if the conservative reaction had 
consummated its purpose, and that the federal 
monarchy was perfected, affording an example of 
authority which George III himself might have 
admired. 

The enraged Republicans, unable to make head 
in Congress, now developed fresh resources of 
opposition by invoking state authority. Then 
began the conflict of state and federal powers of 
government which constitutes such an important 
episode of our constitutional history. It is gener- 



THE RULING CLASS DLVLDED 115 

ally regarded as peculiar to American politics, so 
that it has been treated as comprising the sub- 
stance of American constitutional history, but it 
is really a very old feature of politics. Wherever 
independent powers of government have existed 
side by side, they have served as antagonistic 
centres of opposition. That was the bane of the 
feudal system, and led to its overthrow by an exal- 
tation of royal authority sustained by necessities 
of social order. In England, the consolidation of 
authority was so complete that when the Rocking- 
ham Whigs were helpless in Parliament, during 
the memorable struggle over the Wilkes' case, the 
most effective form of opposition they could think 
of was to get up reproachful petitions to the king 
from every locality which their influence could 
sway. From the strength of the passions which 
were aroused during the struggle, there can be no 
doubt that, had the territorial strongholds of the 
Whig aristocracy possessed independent powers 
of government, those powers would have been 
brought to bear against the administration. In this 
respect the Jefferson faction among the American 
gentry had a peculiar advantage, for the state 
governments did possess independent political 
powers which furnished weapons to the opposition 
for attacks on the government. The famous Vir- 
ginia and Kentucky resolutions made their appear- 
ance. Madison, who had labored hard in the 
constitutional convention to give the government 



Il6 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

discretionary authority to veto any state legisla- 
tion, and who had declared that the people " will 
never be satisfied till some remedy be applied to 
the vicissitudes and uncertainties which char- 
acterized the state administrations," 1 draughted 
the Virginia resolutions. They declare the consti- 
tution to be " a compact to which the states are 
parties," so that they have a right to interpose 
their authority when the federal government at- 
tempts " a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous 
exercise of other powers not granted in that com- 
pact." In 1786, when the states were united only 
by the loose ties of the Confederation, Jefferson 
laid down the doctrine that "when any one state in 
the American union refuses obedience to the Con- 
federation, by which they have bound themselves, 
the rest have a natural right to compel them to 
obedience." 2 The time had now arrived when he 
draughted the Kentucky resolutions, asserting the 
right of any one state " to nullify of its own au- 
thority all assumptions of power by others, within 
its limits." Thus was developed a resource of 
opposition which was long in habitual use as a 
menace to federal policy. During Madison's ad- 
ministration, the New England Federalists carried 
state opposition almost to the stage of secession. 
At various times, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Massachusetts, 

1 The Federalist, No. 37. 

2 Jefferson's Writings, Vol. IV., p. 147. 



THE RULING CLASS DIVLDED \\J 

Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and Maine have 
each imitated the example of Virginia and Ken- 
tucky and made threats of nullification. All 
parties in turn have made use of such means of 
opposition, until it was suppressed forever by the 
Civil War. The tendency has not ceased alto- 
gether, but it is now reduced to such absurd shifts 
as were displayed during the agitation over the 
Force Bill in aid of federal election laws, when 
the most that state opposition could do was to 
threaten to withhold appropriations for state repre- 
sentation at the Chicago World's Fair. 

The alien and sedition laws doomed the Federal- 
ist party. The people rebelled against the yoke, 
and the Federalists went down in irretrievable ruin. 
It may seem strange that a party of which Wash- 
ington had been the head, and which founded the 
government, was so deficient in vitality that it 
could never recover from the shock of defeat, but 
its position was weak and precarious from the 
first The combination of interests which pro- 
duced it never attained true party union. The 
deep antagonism, originating in the events of the 
Revolutionary War, divided it in a way that made 
it incapable of united action after Washington's 
control and influence had been removed. John 
Adams had belonged to the old congressional 
group. Although thrown by circumstances into 
party antagonism, Jefferson and Adams had a 
strong personal esteem for each other. When 



4 

Il8 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

Adams was elected, Jefferson wrote to Madison, 
asking if " it would not be worthy of consideration 
whether it would not be for the public good to 
come to a good understanding with him." On 
the other hand, the military group profoundly 
distrusted Adams. Washington's relations with 
Adams were marked by formality and reserve, 
and Adams wrote that he detested "that con- 
tracted principle of monopoly and exclusion which 
had prevailed through Washington's administra- 
tion." Hamilton, in his famous denunciation of 
Adams, made it a count of his indictment that 
Adams, as a member of the Continental Congress, 
had supported the system of annual enlistments 
which had been so injurious to the discipline and 
efficiency of the army. Hamilton would have pre- 
vented Adams' election could he have done so, 
and Adams was so distrusted by his party that his 
cabinet officials looked to Hamilton for instruction 
and advice on important points of public policy. 
For a considerable period Adams' administration 
was subject to a secret control and was but nom- 
inally under his direction. This false situation 
ended in an open breach between Hamilton and 
Adams, which shattered the Federal party. 

But even had it escaped these intestine disor- 
ders, the original Federal party was doomed to 
extinction. Old-fashioned Federalism was the 
product of an order of ideas transmitted from 
the colonial period, and fast becoming obsolete. 



THE RULING CLASS DIVIDED 119 

Under the new conditions of thought and feeling, 
created by the progress of the nation, it was in- 
evitable either that it should perish or else be 
completely transformed. Burr's pistol blew the 
brains out of the Federal party ; for Hamilton's 
death removed the only leader who might have 
risen to the occasion and made a new departure. 
Before it died, Federalism had degenerated into 
a senile Toryism, as much out of touch with the 
age, and as incapable of political activity, as 
Jacobitism in England. 

The extraordinary scenes which disgraced the 
close of Adams' administration were the natural 
product of Federalist ideas of government. The 
constitution seemed to have gone to wreck, and 
the duty of the hour was to make as great a 
salvage as possible. "In the future administra- 
tion of our country," wrote Adams to Jay, in offer- 
ing him the chief justiceship, "the firmest secu- 
rity we can have against the effects of visionary 
schemes or fluctuating theories will be in a solid 
judiciary; and nothing will cheer the hopes of 
the best men so much as your acceptance of this 
appointment." Jay declined the office. "I left 
the bench," he said, "perfectly convinced that 
under a system so defective it would not obtain 
the energy, weight, and dignity which were essen- 
tial to its affording due support to the national 
government, nor acquire the public confidence and 
respect which, as the last resort of the justice of 



120 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

the nation, it should possess." Had Jay resolved 
to brave the perils he feared, John Marshall might 
have passed obscurely into history as a service- 
able partisan, instead of as the great chief justice. 
Even after his appointment to the bench, Marshall 
continued at Adams' urgent request to hold the 
office of Secretary of State. He was kept busy 
issuing federal commissions, as Federalists were 
appointed to every office in the reach of the ad- 
ministration. A bill was hurried through Con- 
gress, establishing circuit courts and providing for 
thirty-six new judgeships, which were promptly 
filled. The work of appointing Federalists to 
office went on to the very last hour of Adams' 
term of office. 

Jefferson's installation in office was an event 
that was regarded with gloomy foreboding by the 
old school of statesmen. It seemed that the time 
had arrived of which Fisher Ames wrote : " The 
Democrats really wish to see an impossible experi- 
ment fairly tried, and to govern without govern- 
ment. There is universally a presumption in 
Democracy that promises everything ; and at the 
same time an imbecility that can accomplish noth- 
ing, nor even preserve itself." 

But although it seemed that party spirit had 
trampled over constitutional government, there 
was at work, quite unsuspected, a principle of 
conservatism that seems to be peculiar to party 
of the English and American type. 



CHAPTER IX 

POLITICAL FORCE 

The aptitude of politics to form a party of 
administration and a party of opposition, which is 
generally regarded as a normal characteristic, is 
really a tendency which has to be acquired. The 
natural tendency is towards a multiplication of 
parties to correspond with varieties of opinion 
and groupings of interests, so that instead of op- 
posing parties contending for the management of 
public affairs, there would be shifting parliamentary 
groups, such as make French and German politics 
so perplexing to outsiders. The strong tendency 
of English politics to party division, rather than 
faction partition, is evidently not a race charac- 
teristic. A sectarian disposition is a conspicuous 
trait of religious opinion among Englishmen and- 
Americans, and in politics also a sectarian dispo- 
sition is exhibited by the frequent attempts to 
organize new parties. In politics, however, such 
movements are counteracted by other forces which 
tend to gather all varieties of political sentiment 
into two opposing party organizations. 

The explanation of this curious phenomenon is 
probably to be found in the circumstances of Eng- 



122 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

lish political development. Royal authority in 
England was not built up gradually, as in France 
and Germany, by centuries of struggle against 
feudal privilege, but was attained at once by con- 
quest. The prerogative of William the Conqueror, 
in the eleventh century, was as robust as that of 
Louis XIV in the seventeenth. The king of Eng- 
land had complete control of the national authority 
at a time when a French or a German king was 
merely the primate of a swarm of sovereigns. The 
royal prerogative was so powerful in England that 
it did not fear parliamentary institutions as a rival 
source of power, and instead of aiming to suppress 
them, as in Continental Europe, the disposition was 
to preserve them, as an useful means of communica- 
tion with the people. Milton's reason for desiring to 
abolish the use of the word "parliament" to denote 
the English legislature was that it originally sig- 
nified " the parley of our lords and commons with 
the Norman kings when he pleased to call them." 
The uniformity of jurisprudence, effected by the 
plenitude of royal authority, was a powerful na- 
tionalizing influence, small opportunity being af- 
forded for the growth of the provincial rights and 
privileges which played such a great part in the 
politics of Continental Europe. The immense 
weight of royal prerogative rested upon the nation 
as a whole, compacting its elements. To make 
any stand against royal oppression, the nobles 
had to act together and have the support of the 



POLITICAL FORCE 1 23 

people. When bounds were set to royal preroga- 
tive, they were established, not as a class privilege, 
but as a general right, of which Parliament was 
the natural guardian. The influences of constitu- 
tional progress tended to fuse the various elements 
of the population, originally as diverse and antago- 
nistic as anywhere else in Europe, into national 
unity. The process consumed centuries, but its 
heat and pressure formed English politics into a 
substance so homogeneous that, when public opinion 
became a factor in administration, the force gen- 
erated by it exhibited the marked polarity which 
has been its characteristic, — a positive phase and 
a negative phase, the government and the oppo- 
sition. 

After the overthrow of the Stuarts had prac- 
tically transferred the executive authority from 
the crown to Parliament, the conditions which had 
brought about this unique phenomenon were con- 
tinued by the rule of the nobility. The Whig 
oligarchy, which had successfully carried through 
the Revolution of 1689, resumed in its class control 
the authority of which royalty had been dispos- 
sessed. Without such restraints, the establish- 
ment of the authority of Parliament would have 
allowed such free play to divergent interests that 
politics would probably have become a chaos of 
turbulent opinion. Such had been the result of 
the victory of Parliament over Charles I. Par- 
liamentary government became impossible with 



124 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

the usual result — the establishment of a military 
dictatorship. The nation was glad to escape by 
returning to the ancient constitution. The Revolu- 
tion of 1689 was aristocratic in its inception and 
guidance, and did not disturb the forms of the 
constitution while radically transforming its char- 
acter. Unity of administration was no longer 
secured by the king's prerogative, but by aristo- 
cratic control. The body of the aristocracy, united 
by their class interests, were at the same time 
divided into contending factions by rivalry for the 
possession of office and power. Their struggles 
developed party organization and discipline, and 
set party action in the grooves along which it has 
since moved. They were like a board of directors, 
who might quarrel among themselves and split 
into factions, each aiming to secure control of the 
affairs of the corporation ; but to whose strife their 
common interests set bounds which they instinc- 
tively respected, so that their disputes were neces- 
sarily subject to some regulation, gradually finding 
expression in rules of procedure. In like manner, 
parliamentary usages have been established which 
give to the English government its true character. 
The cabinet system has no other foundation than 
a general agreement that the political junto which 
can secure a majority in the House of Commons is 
entitled to the administration. 1 

1 Boutmy's English Constitution, Part III., Chap. IV., gives a 
lucid account of the process of English party development. 



POLITICAL FORCE 1 25 

Something like the same conditions of control 
and guidance were established in the United States 
by the rule of the gentry. This rule was, how- 
ever, so artificial and factitious that it was always 
in a condition of extreme delicacy. Had it ful- 
filled the desire with which it was instituted, of 
setting a rigid barrier to democratic tendencies, it 
would have been crushed. The tutelage to which 
it was intended to subject the nation would not 
have been endured. Notwithstanding Washing- 
ton's military renown and the popular veneration 
for his character, the spirit of insubordination was 
so strong that the government was a weak, shaky 
affair. John Adams says that, in the exciting 
times of 1794, "ten thousand people in the streets 
of Philadelphia, day after day, threatened to drag 
Washington out of his house and effect a revolu- 
tion in the government, or compel it to declare 
war in favor of the French Revolution and against 
England." 1 In Adams' opinion, the yellow fever, 
more than any strength in the government, pre- 
vented a revolution. The attempt made during 
Adams' administration to suppress popular agita- 
tion by means of the sedition laws might have 
caused an explosion of democratic force which 
would have blown up the government, had it not 
been for an event which at the time was regarded 
by the supporters of the government as a dire mis- 
fortune — the formation among the gentry them- 

1 Adams' Works, Vol. X., pp. 47, 48. ' 



126 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

selves of an opposition party. It was the great 
unconscious achievement of Thomas Jefferson to 
open constitutional channels of political agitation, 
to start the processes by which the development of 
our constitution is carried on. 

It is remarkable how promptly the varied dis- 
contents, which might have converted politics into 
a strife of revolutionary groups, rushed into the 
outlet provided for them. Everywhere the state 
factions were gathered into relations with the 
Federal or Republican parties, and placed them- 
selves under the guidance of their party chiefs. 
This was the salvation of the government. Change 
became possible without destruction. Anti-feder- 
alism lost its sullen temper, and entertained hopes 
of the government if only Jefferson and the Re- 
publicans should obtain control. The whiskey 
insurrectionists saw a way open by which they 
could attack the hated excise without rebellion, 
and their ablest spokesman, Gallatin, became a 
Republican party leader. The clubs of social 
revolutionists which had sprung up in the cities, 
blazing with incendiary ideas caught from the 
French Revolution, were converted into party 
workers, and their behavior was moderated by 
considerations of party interest. When the more 
violent factions among the Republicans showed a 
disposition to follow up their victory in the elec- 
tion of Jefferson by an assault upon the judiciary, 
their own party leaders held them in check. In 



POLITICAL FORCE \2J 

Pennsylvania, Governor McKean, whose election 
was one of the first triumphs of the Republican 
party, vetoed a bill reforming the judiciary system. 
Eminent Republicans, such as Alexander Dallas, 
Jared Ingersoll, and Hugh H. Brackenridge 
opposed the impeachment of three judges of the 
state supreme court, and the state senate gave a 
majority for acquittal. Even Jefferson's own in- 
fluence could not procure the united support of 
his party in the U. S. Senate for the impeachment 
of Judge Chase. The reform of government which 
the Republican leaders had really sought was a 
change in the custody of the powers of govern- 
ment, and they would not support movements 
aimed directly at the authority of government. 
As their support was essential to party success, 
faction animosity had to defer to their ideas. 

The distinction between party and faction seems 
to be this : party aims at administrative control, 
while faction is the propaganda of a particular 
interest. Party, therefore, contains a principle of 
conservatism, inasmuch as it must always seek to 
keep faction within such bounds as will prevent 
it from jeoparding party interests. An important 
consequence of this party instinct of comprehen- 
sion is the tendency of opposing party organiza- 
tions to equalize each other in strength. The 
practical purpose of their formation causes each 
to compete for popular favor in ways that tend 
towards an approximately equal division of pop- 



128 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

ular support. Even in the greatest victories at 
the polls, the preponderance of the triumphant 
party is but a small percentage of the total vote. 
If a party becomes so hopelessly discredited that 
it has no chance of success, it disappears like the 
Federalists or the old National Republican party, 
and a new party takes its place based on contem- 
poraneous divisions of public sentiment. 

The conservative function of party is not duly 
appreciated, because its operation is negative. 
What is done is known, but how far the impulse 
which produced the act has been moderated can- 
not be known. It must, however, be apparent on 
reflection, that even in times of the most conta- 
gious excitement there must be some modification 
of individual opinions to secure an agreement of 
purpose among large bodies of citizens. It is 
reasonable to infer that the habitual calculation of 
consequences, essential to the training of every 
political leader, must affect his deference to the 
behests of his supporters. It may be stated as a 
fact, which acquaintance with the interior work- 
ings of politics will verify, that the influence of 
party leaders is chiefly exerted in soothing the 
prejudices and moderating the demands of their 
followers. If party action were an accurate re- 
flection of the passions, animosities, and beliefs of 
the mass of individuals composing the party mem- 
bership, politics would be as tremendous in their 
instability as ocean waves ; but party action being 



POLITICAL FORCE 1 29 

a social product is in organic connection with all 
the processes of thought and feeling which pertain 
to human nature, and is subject to the play of their 
influence. A typical result is that curious accum- 
ulation of traditions and tenets which give to party 
communion almost the sanctions of religious faith. 
On this point, with great sagacity, Macaulay has 
said : " Every political sect has its esoteric and its 
exoteric school, its abstract doctrines for the initi- 
ated, its visible symbols, its imposing forms, its 
mythological fables for the vulgar. It assists the 
devotion of those who are unable to raise them- 
selves to the contemplation of pure truth by all y 
the devices of . . . superstition. It has its altars 
and its deified heroes, its relics and its pilgrimages, 
its canonized martyrs and confessors, and its legen- 
dary miracles." 

American party history conspicuously attests 
the truth of these observations. The mythic 
tendency has converted the choleric politicians of 
the early period of the republic into sages, philoso- 
phers, and even saints ! If it were not so difficult 
to notice that which is familiar, it would be easy to 
see that this process of canonization is going on 
in our own time, idealizing and transfiguring men 
whose real personality is still well within the 
recollection of the living. 



CHAPTER X 

DEMOCRATIC TENDENCIES 

The overthrow of the Federalists was marked 
by an immediate change in the deportment of the 
administration. Jefferson substituted a written 
message for the speech to Congress at the opening 
of the session, giving as his reason that he thus 
avoided the contention that would have taken place 
in Congress over the character of the address in 
reply to the President. He also tried to introduce 
an easy and informal style of manners at the exec- 
utive mansion. It is usually the case that those 
who set themselves against established forms have 
to give more attention to the subject than those 
who observe them, and in introducing what he 
called " the principle of pele mele," Jefferson 
troubled himself a great deal more about questions 
of etiquette than his predecessors had done. 

The agencies of government devised by the 
Federalists were mostly left intact. The alien and 
sedition laws were by their terms only temporary 
measures, and they expired by limitation. The 
legislation by which the Federalists had packed 
the bench was rescinded, and thus " the midnight 
judges" were gotten rid of by extinguishing their 

130 



DEMOCRATIC TENDENCIES 131 

office. The internal revenue laws were repealed ; 
but Jefferson became so far reconciled to the 
United States Bank as to suggest "a judicious 
distribution of favors " to that and other banks 
" to engage the individuals who belonged to them 
in support " of his administration. A bill enabling 
the United States Bank to establish branches in 
the territories was approved by him. 

In general, it may be said that the Jeffersonian 
triumph restored the supremacy of the civilian 
group. They proceeded to put down the armyand 
navy, and rid themselves as rapidly as possible of / 
the burden of national defence; but there was no 
reluctance about making a large use of the powers 
of government which had come into their hands. 
The Louisiana purchase was effected by an as- 
sumption of authority quite in Hamilton's style. 
Jefferson himself salved his wounded sense of 
consistency by recommending the adoption of a 
constitutional amendment expressly legalizing his 
act ; but even his own Cabinet would not pay 
any attention to his scruples. The embargo upon > 
American commerce, which he ingeniously con- 
ceived as a dignified retaliation for the insults and 
injuries which his policy encouraged England and 
France to inflict, carried national authority to logi- 
cal extremities to which the Federalists would not 
have dared to go. The enforcement act passed 1 
to sustain the embargo was a greater interference 
with the ordinary privileges of citizens than would 



V' 

132 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

have been necessary in the exercise of war powers. 
The executive behavior of Jefferson and Madison 
shows that they were willing to go to any length 
in the development of authority, so long as it was 
in its nature such as would remain in civilian 
hands. 1 

All this was a great stumbling-block to the 
state sovereignty theorizers, who at a later day 
declared that they were simply holding out for 
the ideas of Jefferson. Calhoun, with his habitual 
intellectual honesty, frankly admitted that Jeffer- 
son did not live up to the principles which he had 
enunciated. Calhoun said : " He did nothing to 
arrest many great and radical evils ; nothing tow- 
ards elevating the judicial departments of the 
governments of the several states, from a state 
of subordination to the judicial department of the 
United States, to their rightful constitutional posi- 
tion as coordinates ; nothing towards maintaining 
the rights of the states, as parties to the constitu- 
tional compact, to judge in the last resort as to 
the extent of their delegated powers ; nothing 
towards restoring to Congress the exclusive right 
to adopt measures necessary and proper to carry 
into operation its own as well as other powers 
vested in the government, or in any of its depart- 
ments ; nothing towards reversing the order of 
General Hamilton which united the government 

1 Henry Adams' History of the United States, Vol. IV., pp. 
398-400. 



DEMOCRATIC TENDENCIES 1 33 

with the banks ; and nothing effectual towards re- 
stricting the money power to objects specifically 
enumerated and delegated by the constitution." 1 

In its character the government was as aristo- 
cratic as before. Manhood suffrage had been 
established in Kentucky and in Vermont, and a 
general movement towards the removal of restric- 
tions on the suffrage had begun ; but in most of 
the states the voters were still a limited class of 
the adult male population. In only six of the 
sixteen states which voted in 1800 were electors 
chosen by popular vote. Political leaders set up 
candidates and made nominations in their party 
interest in pretty much the same style in which 
such matters were done in England. In 1808, 
Jefferson wrote to William Wirt: " The object of 
this letter is to propose to you to come into Con- 
gress. That is the great commanding theatre of 
this nation and the threshold to whatever depart- 
ment of office a man is qualified to enter. With 
your reputation, talents, and correct views, used 
with the necessary prudence, you will at once be 
placed at the head of the House of Representa- 
tives ; and after obtaining the standing which a 
little time will assure you, you may look, at your 
own will, into the military, the judiciary, diplo- 
matic, or other civil departments, with a certainty 
of being in either whatever you please ; and in the 
present state of what may be called the eminent 

1 Calhoun's Works, Vol. I., p. 360. 



134 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

talents of our country you may be assured of 
being engaged through life in the most honorable 
employments." 

No party leader in our time would dare to give 
so broad a guarantee. Of the early period of our 
politics, Professor Alexander Johnston remarks : 
" In both parties the abler leaders assumed the 
direct initiative in party management to an extent 
which would be intolerable, if openly asserted at 
the present time." 1 Nevertheless, the democratic 
tendencies of the times were very marked, and the 
circumstances were such that the natural care of 
the administration for its own interests, in dis- 
pensing the patronage of the government, tended 
to foster those tendencies. It may seem strange 
that the democratic movement, which eventually 
overthrew the old regime, should have been pro- 
moted by such a close oligarchy as the Virginia 
dynasty of presidents. But it is a thing of common 
occurrence in politics to find that special exigen- 
cies impel politicians in directions opposed to their 
traditional tendencies. 

In using the patronage for party ends, Jeffer- 
son and his successors adopted no new principle of 
conduct. Such use of the patronage was an in- 
veterate practice of English politics. It dates 
from the time when the crown, no longer able to 
overawe Parliament by power, had to resort to in- 
fluence — that is to say, it dates from the Revolu- 

1 Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Vol. I., p. 769. 



DEMOCRATIC TENDENCIES 135 

tion of 1689. The rage for office was quite as 
great in The colonies as in England. During colo- 
nial times, quarrels over questions of patronage 
were the cause of many conflicts between provin- 
cial assemblies and the governors. The state of 
antagonism, which generally existed between the 
governor and the assembly, strengthened and per- 
petuated the original English conception of the 
speakership as the office of a party leader, a char- 
acter which has never left it in this country. Most 
of the time of the Continental Congress seems to 
have been consumed in disputes about the offices. 
John Adams says : "Congress was torn to pieces 
by these disputes, and days and months were 
wasted in such controversies, to the inexpressible 
injury of the service." 2 The restoration of the 
general government made no change of disposition 
in this respect. So far as the influence of patron- 
age could extend, it was used to secure political 
support for the administration. Maclay notes in 
his diary that Washington had begun to consult 
with representatives as to his appointments, and 
took this as a sign of " a courtship of and atten- 
tion to the House of Representatives, that by 
their weight he may depress the Senate and exalt 
his prerogative on the ruins." 2 Although the ad- 
ministration was non-partisan in theory, yet it was 
careful in making appointments to select such as 

1 Adams' Works, Vol. VI., pp. 538, 539. 

2 Maclay 's Diary, p. 122. 



136 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

were zealous in support of the government, and 
would exert their influence to make it a success. 
When the break-up of the Cabinet occurred, and 
an anti-administration party was organized, only 
staunch Federalists received office. In a letter 
to Colonel Timothy Pickering, Secretary of War, 
Washington said : " I shall not, while I have the 
honor of administering the government, bring a 
man into any office of consequence knowingly 
whose political tenets are adverse to the measures 
the general government are pursuing ; for this, in 
my opinion, would be a sort of political suicide." 

During Adams' administration the utterances of 
Federal leaders in the Senate were very emphatic 
on this point. Senator Bayard announced "that 
the politics of the office-seeker would be the great 
object of the President's attention, and an invinci- 
ble objection if different from his own." 1 Senator 
Otis said that "the pecuniary claims of Henry 
Miller for extra clerk hire," occasioned by his 
inability to keep up with his office work while elec- 
tioneering for Adams, was " a paltry consideration 
infinitely outweighed by the service he was ren- 
dering to his country." 2 

The direct influence of patronage was more 
potent then than it is now ; for the conduct of poli- 
tics was further removed from the people, and was 
more largely an affair of personal management and 

1 Annals of Congress, 1797-1798, p. 1232. 

2 National Intelligencer, August 14, 1801. 



DEMOCRATIC TENDENCIES 1 37 

individual negotiation, which could be greatly pro- 
moted by executive favors. "This is the great 
spring of all in the minds of senators and repre- 
sentatives," wrote John Adams, " to obtain favors 
for favorites among their constituents, in order to 
attach them by gratitude, and establish their own 
influence at homeland abroad." 1 Adams attrib- 
uted his defeat for reelection to the presidency to 
a matter of this sort. Washington, when in com- 
mand of the little army put on foot during the 
French war scare in 1798, refused to give Peter 
Muhlenberg an officer's commission. "And what 
was the consequence ? " said Adams. " These two 
Muhlenbergs (Peter and Frederick) addressed the 
public with their, names both in English and in 
German, with invectives against the administra- 
tion and warm recommendations of Mr. Jefferson. 
. . . The Muhlenbergs turned the whole body of 
the Germans, great numbers of the Irish, and 
many of the English, and in this manner intro- 
duced the total change which followed in both 
houses of the legislature and in all the executive 
departments of the national government." 2 

Removals from office were for a long time hin- 
dered by the feeling that they were in the nature 
of an attack on property rights. In England, the 
disposition to regard public trusts in private hands 
as a species of property was so strong that so 

1 Adams' Works, Vol. IX., pp. 633, 634. 

2 Ibid., Vol. X., p. 122. 



138 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

bitter an assailant of political corruption as Junius 
conceded that the nomination boroughs were en- 
titled by usage and prescription to rank as prop- 
erty. It is true that removals from office on party 
grounds were practised under George III, but the 
national instinct of justice was deeply violated. In 
1 762-1 763, Henry Fox broke the power of the elder 
Pitt and secured a parliamentary majority for the 
Bute ministry by sweeping removals of Pitt's sup- 
porters and by the ruthless use of all the patronage 
of the government ; but he made himself execrated 
by public opinion, and the literature of the day 
contains expressions of the deepest abhorrence. 
George III personally pursued the same tactics, 
with ruinous results, and in the end he had to 
abandon the system and rest the administration 
of affairs on the talents and popularity of the 
younger Pitt. A great purification of politics fol- 
lowed. Having under the cabinet system of gov- 
ernment the power of shaping issues by exercising 
a direct initiative in legislation, an administration 
supported by a popular mandate was to a large 
extent relieved of the necessity of using bribery 
or trafficking in offices to facilitate the trans- 
action of the public business ; for the admin- 
istration was in a position to invoke the power 
of public opinion to overawe intriguers and 
mutineers. 

When Jefferson became President he found the 
offices in the possession of the Federalists. In 



DEMOCRATIC TENDENCIES 1 39 

trying to bring in his party friends, he was 
hampered by this sentiment that a man had a 
property right to the retention of his office. When 
he removed Elizur Goodrich from the collectorship 
of New Haven, he was disturbed by the energy of 
public remonstrance. Writing in reply, he said : 
" Declarations by myself, in favor of political toler- 
ance, exhortations to harmony and affection in 
social intercourse, and respect for the equal rights 
of the minority, have on certain occasions been 
quoted and misconstrued into assurances that the 
tenure of office was not to be disturbed. But 
could candor apply such a construction ? When 
it is considered that under the late administration 
those who were not of a particular cast of politics 
were excluded from all office ; when, by a steady 
pursuit of this measure, nearly the whole offices of 
the United States were monopolized by that sect ; 
when the public sentiment at length declared 
itself and burst open the doors of honor and con- 
fidence to those whose opinions they approved, 
was it to be expected that this monopoly of office 
was to be continued in the hands of the minority ? 
Does it violate their equal rights to assert some 
rights in the majority also. Is it political intoler- 
ance to claim a proportionate share in the direction 
of public affairs ? If a due participation of office 
is a matter of right, how are vacancies to be 
obtained ? Those by death are few, by resignation 
none. Can any other mode than that of removal 



I40 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

be proposed ? This is a painful office ; but it is 
made my duty and I meet it as such." 

Nevertheless, the force of hostile sentiment 
was so strong that he made few removals. So 
long as the gentry retained their class control of 
the government, the tenure of office was rarely 
disturbed on avowed party grounds. 



CHAPTER XI 

ESTABLISHING THE MACHINE 

The forces which broke down the traditional re- 
straint were developed in state politics, where they 
began to operate with marked effect as soon as 
the national government was established. An in- 
termixture of national with state politics was pro- 
vided by the constitution, for the states were made 
parties to the administration of the government. 
The management of state politics was hence an 
essential part of national politics. As soon as the 
constitution was framed, the struggle to control 
state politics on national issues was begun, and it 
has gone on ever since. 

The South preserved longer than any other 
section the characteristics of colonial politics ; 
the conditions there were such that the class inter- 
ests and social connections of the gentry provided 
an organization that was sufficient for political 
purposes. Being thus shielded from the neces- 
sities which at an early date forced the Northern 
politicians into a commerce in offices, the original 
prejudice against assailing a man's property in his 
office remained acute in the South long after it 
had been dulled or extinguished in the North. 

141 



142 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

The political activity of the Southern gentry was 
a function of their social position. What they 
chiefly sought from politics was honor and power. 
Their instinct was to regard office as the due of 
social eminence or individual ability. The concep- 
tion of office as payment for partisan servility was 
revolting to their ideas. The greed and violence 
of the mob politics of Northern cities filled them 
with disgust. In Virginia changes of the state 
administration were not accompanied by changes 
in the offices until after 1834. 1 Daniel Webster, 
in a speech at Richmond in 1840, declared that 
" Virginia more than any other state in the Union 
had disavowed and condemned the doctrine of re- 
movals from office for opinion's sake." As late as 
1849 Calhoun boasted °f South Carolina: "Party 
organization, party discipline, party proscription, 
and their offspring, the spoils system, have been 
unknown to the state. Nothing of the kind is 
necessary to produce concentration." 2 

In the North, party divisions in the states, caused 
by the introduction of national issues, did not sim- 
ply produce rival factions among the gentry as in 
the South, but from the first appealed to and drew 
into the field of political activity an electorate, in 
whose opinions the offices were good things which 
ought to go around. The rise of this sentiment 
was, however, gradual, and even in New York, 

1 Tyler's Letters and Times of the Tylers, Vol. L, p. 524. 

2 Calhoun's Works, Vol. I., p. 405. 



ESTABLISHING THE MACHINE 1 43 

where favoring influences were strongest, it made 
its way with difficulty. When Hamilton began 
the work of building up the Federal party in New 
York, state politics had for many years been con- 
trolled by family influences, with no more disturb- 
ance than was caused by rivalries among the Clin- 
tons, Livingstons, and Schuylers. Although 
party contests were full of personal rancor, yet 
effective public opinion was still the class opinion 
of the gentry. The electorate was limited, only 
freeholders with an estate of ,£100 above all 
liens having the franchise. In the state election 
of 1789, out of a population of 324,270, only 12,300 
votes were polled. Hamilton's success was due to 
the fact that on the issue he presented he was able 
to combine the Livingstons and the Schuylers 
against the Clintons. The use the Federalists 
made of their victory showed the restraining 
influence of polite opinion. Actual removals from 
office were few. The Federalists got their party 
friends into office by seizing vacancies caused by 
the expiration of terms of office, although reap- 
pointment had been the usage. New offices 
were created by increasing the number of such 
public officers as judges and justices of the peace. 
In this way enough Federalists were introduced 
into the county courts to outvote their opponents. 
In counties where the numbers of such officers 
had been about twenty, there were now forty or 
fifty. 



144 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

Politics could still be managed by conference 
and agreement among gentlemen, and the conduct 
of politics had to defer to their class opinion. But 
the spread of democratic influence was rapid. The 
growth of city population developed an electorate, 
which soon dispossessed itself of habits of defer- 
ence to social superiors, so that it had to be wrought 
upon by other influences. There were none so 
available as those connected with the use of pat- 
ronage, and this use had to conform to the changing 
conditions of politics. The change in the political 
situation was made sharply manifest by Aaron 
Burr, whose political ambition was so steadily 
thwarted by Hamilton's ascendency, and who was 
so jealously excluded from influence, that it was 
necessary for him to develop a new source of 
power, or be crushed altogether as a factor in poli- 
tics. His instrument was the Columbian order, 
now better known as Tammany Hall. Founded 
during the second week of Washington's adminis- 
tration, it was originally a social rather than a 
political organization. It seemed to have become 
a centre of political activity, largely owing to the 
fact that it was a place of meeting for the common 
people, filling the place occupied among the gen- 
try by their clubs and assemblies. By a natural 
antagonism of classes it gradually became a polit- 
ical power. While the gentry arranged their 
political deals with their feet under the mahogany 
and the punch-bowl on the board, there was now 



ESTABLISHING THE MACHINE 1 45 

in existence a competitive mixture of politics and 
hospitality to which the common people could 
resort. A stanza by Fitz-Greene Halleck has em- 
balmed the tradition of those early days : — 

" There's a barrel of porter in Tammany Hall, 
And the Bucktails are swigging it all the night long. 
In the time of my childhood 'twas pleasant to call 
For a seat and cigar 'mid the jovial throng." 

By the aid of Tammany Hall, in 1800, Aaron 
Burr wrested from Hamilton the political control 
of New York City. The election presented the 
modern features. Voters were sought out and 
brought to the polls, carriages were sent for the 
sick, infirm, or lazy, and Tammany Hall kept open 
house all day. Hamilton, whose power in New 
York City had rested upon the support of the 
local moneyed aristocracy, was much impressed by 
the effectiveness of the new political methods. 
He came to the conclusion that the Federalists 
"erred in relying so much on the rectitude and 
utility of their measures as to have neglected the 
cultivation of popular favor by fair and justifiable 
expedients." He drew up a scheme of "the Chris- 
tian Constitutional Society," whose objects were 
to be the support of the Christian religion and of 
the constitution of the United States. 1 Senator 
Bayard, of Delaware, to whom he submitted the 
project, did not think favorably of it, and it was 
dropped. 

1 Hamilton's Works, Vol. VI., pp. 541-543. 



146 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

From such cares as these the Southern leaders 
were quite free. Politics were so completely 
under the control of the gentry that scarcely any 
appeal could be made in any quarter against their 
class sentiment. The Virginia dynasty was the 
political expression of the natural hegemony of 
the great state of Virginia in a compact confedera- 
tion of social interests which ruled the South, and 
by means of an united South ruled the Union. 
The security in which Jefferson and his close suc- 
cessors abided as regards their own section gave 
them a free hand in the turbulent politics of the 
North. If a Northern politician became dangerous, 
the federal patronage could be used against him 
with effect. Aaron Burr was the first to experi- 
ence this. Up to the time of the struggle which 
ensued when the presidential election of 1800 de- 
volved on the House of Representatives, Burr was 
recognized as the head of the Republican interest 
in New York. But under Jefferson's adminis- 
tration De Witt Clinton became the party leader 
in that state. Clinton resigned his seat in the 
United States Senate to become mayor of New 
York City, the power and influence of which office 
gave him the best opportunity of undermining 
Burr's local interest. Burr, weighed down by the 
odium of his fatal duel with Hamilton, was unable 
to maintain himself as a party leader; but before 
submitting to political extinction he made an in- 
structive test of the fitness of the stage of public 



ESTABLISHING THE MACHINE 1 47 

affairs for a role which at one time or another has 
been successfully enacted in every other country, 
and which still affords an opening to political 
talent in Central and South American states. He 
turned conspirator. The result showed conclu- 
sively that American politics do not afford a field 
for such adventure. The political habits and in- 
stinctive prejudices of the American people are so 
firmly attached to constitutional government that 
not in any mood will they hearken to proposals 
which do not claim its sanction. However fierce an 
outburst of public sentiment may be, even though 
it reach to the stage of insurrection or civil war, 
it must keep under the cover of a constitutional 
theory. 

A Southern politician, who might become re- 
calcitrant, could not be disposed of as easily as was 
Burr. When John Randolph of Roanoke turned 
against the administration, Jefferson had to endure 
his galling attacks, for he could not cut the ground 
from under Randolph's feet in his own constitu- 
ency. But when De Witt Clinton, in his turn, 
assumed an attitude of opposition to the national 
administration, during Madison's term, he could be 
dealt with as Burr had been. The federal patron- 
age was turned against him, contributing to the 
defeat which Clinton then sustained in the struggle 
for the control of state politics. 

Similar interferences of federal influence in the 
contests of state factions, in furtherance of the 



148 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

party interests of the national administration, 
were of frequent occurrence, and in this way the 
federal patronage acted as a stimulus to democratic 
tendencies. The road to political consideration 
being thus plainly pointed out, travel naturally 
turned that way. The organization of political 
clubs and societies antagonized the family politics 
of the old state factions and gradually broke down 
the old methods. Democratic gains increased 
democratic pressure upon the restraints put against 
popular activity in politics, and set in motion pro- 
cesses of change which profoundly altered political 
conditions. A race of politicians grew up who were 
not the men to entertain scruples about disturbing 
gentlemen in their snug berths. The longer the 
office-holders had been in the more reason why 
they should get out, so as to make room for others 
and give every one a chance at the public crib. 
The survival of the old prejudice may, however, be 
traced in the behavior of Clinton, who, in the vio- 
lent faction struggles of New York, was several 
times in power, wielding the state patronage in 
behalf of his party, and was several times over- 
thrown, to become the victim of a fierce proscrip- 
tion aimed at him and his adherents. At one time 
he advocated the removal of heads of departments 
only. Then he took up Jefferson's line of argu- 
ment and proposed a fair division of minor offices 
between the two parties. In 18 17 he won a great 
victory by appealing to the rural counties with his 



ESTABLISHING THE MACHINE 149 

scheme for the construction of the Erie canal. 
Believing himself then independent of New York 
City politics, he declared his opposition to partisan 
proscription and, beyond turning out a few Tam- 
many office-holders, made no removals on party 
grounds. This was the last stand made in New 
York against the use of the offices for party pur- 
poses. Clinton was antagonized by a combination 
of factions, and during Monroe's administration the 
federal patronage was so actively employed against 
him that he made it a subject of formal complaint 
in a message to the legislature. Clinton was 
driven back to his former methods, which became 
the settled practice of all administrations. 

Not alone in New York, but in Pennsylvania 
and in other Northern states, the development of 
the new method of affecting party concentration 
for administrative purposes made rapid progress. 
The transfer of those methods to the sphere of 
national government was simply a matter of time, 
but it was not accomplished until the new influences 
at work in American society swelled in volume 
until they inundated the whole field of national 
politics. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE NATIONALIZING INFLUENCE OF PARTY 

The growth of national parties tended to develop 
in the people of every state a conception of equita- 
ble rights in the political arrangements of all the 
states. If the party did not receive fair play any- 
where, it suffered everywhere. The popular sense 
of injury in this respect, once excited, was very 
alert and suspicious, and there was incessant com- 
plaint against the unfair discriminations which 
existed. 

The inability of the framers of the constitution 
to get much beyond general principles in reaching 
an agreement, had left a latitude to state action 
in national politics which resulted in gross ine- 
quality of political circumstances. The state legis- 
latures elected United States Senators as they 
pleased, appointed presidential electors as they 
pleased, and provided for the election of state 
quotas in the House of Representatives as they 
pleased. The variety and uncertainty of the con- 
ditions to which national party action was sub- 
jected were especially exasperating with respect 
to the presidential election. The system was not 
made for democratic use, and its unsuitability soon 

150 



NATIONALIZING INFLUENCE OF PARTY I 5 I 

became a sore grievance. When the people sought 
to say for themselves who should be President, 
they were outraged by the facility with which the 
electoral machinery could be used to thwart their 
desires. 

In 1800 the election of Jefferson was put in 
jeopardy by Federalist manoeuvres in Pennsyl- 
vania. In that state it had been the practice from 
the first to choose presidential electors by popular 
vote. Every four years the legislature would dis- 
charge its constitutional duty of providing for the 
appointment of presidential electors by passing a 
special act for an election by the people. In 1796 
fourteen Jefferson electors had been chosen and 
only one Adams man. When the election of 1800 
came on, the state Senate was Federalist by thir- 
teen to eleven ; the House was strongly Republi- 
can. No law was . passed for a popular election, 
and the Senate held out against any action by the 
legislature until the House agreed that the fifteen 
electors should be chosen out of a list of sixteen — 
eight to be nominated by the Senate and as many 
by the House. In this way seven electoral votes 
were obtained for Adams, although the sentiment 
of the people was strongly in favor of Jefferson. 
In New York, during the same campaign, it be- 
came evident that the incoming legislature would 
appoint Republican electors. Hamilton wrote to 
Governor Jay, proposing that the expiring legislat- 
ure should be convoked in special session to pass 



152 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

a law providing for district elections of presiden- 
tial electors, so as to enable the Federalists to 
secure a number. The letter was endorsed by- 
Jay, " Proposing a measure for party purposes 
which I think it would not become me to adopt." 
In Massachusetts, where it had been the practice 
for the legislature to appoint the electors, two at 
large, on its own motion, and the remainder from 
lists of candidates sent up from the congressional 
districts, the system was suddenly changed, in 1804, 
for fear that some Republicans might slip in, and 
a law was passed providing for an election by popu- 
lar vote on a general state ticket. In New Jersey, 
in 18 1 2, calculations of Federalist party advantage 
caused just the reverse of the policy of the Massachu- 
setts Federalists to be adopted. The practice had 
been to choose the presidential electors by popular 
election. The state elections showed a popular 
majority for the Republicans, but owing to pecul- 
iarities of apportionment the legislature was con- 
trolled by the Federalists. Less than a week 
before the time when the election by the people 
should have taken place, the legislature repealed 
the law, and itself appointed the electors, all Fed- 
eralists. 1 

Fortunately, none of these manoeuvres changed 
the result of the presidential election, or else a 
revolutionary violence might have been engen- 

1 Stanwood's History of Presidential Elections. A 



NATIONALIZING INFLUENCE OF PARTY 1 53 

dered in politics, fatal to constitutional develop- 
ment. In the Massachusetts case cited, the actual 
effect was helpful to the Republican party, for it 
carried the state, and hence obtained the solid 
electoral vote. The cumbrous machinery of the 
electoral college yielded sufficiently to popular con- 
trol to secure toleration, but its operation revealed 
one defect which compelled prompt amendment. 
Under the system, as originally established, each 
elector voted for two persons, without designating 
the office, and the person who received the great- 
est number of electoral votes became President. 
Therefore, as soon as the electors voted as party 
agents and cast their votes solidly for both party 
candidates, there was a tie vote. Such was the 
outcome of the election of 1800, and although it 
had been perfectly well understood that Jefferson 
was to have been President and Burr Vice-Presi- 
dent, yet, when the case went to the House of 
Representatives, they stood legally on precisely 
the same footing. The ensuing struggle shook 
the government so alarmingly that there was a 
prompt and irresistible demand that this defect 
should be cured. Even at this early date there was 
some popular agitation in favor of the establish- 
ment of an uniform system of electing the Presi- 
dent ; but conservative influences were too strong 
for it to be effective. The system was amended 
so as to provide that electors should designate 
their choice for President and for Vice-President ; 



154 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

but the original latitude of action given to the 
states was not restricted. 

There were great diversities of practice in the 
various states. In some, the electors were ap- 
pointed by the legislature ; in others, they were 
elected by districts; in others, they were elected 
on a general ticket. This lack of uniformity was 
inimical to democratic influence, for it varied 
the conditions so as to make precarious any 
concert of action which might be arranged, and 
placed the people at the mercy of the faction 
temporarily in control of the electoral machinery. 
Imagine the resentment of Tammany Hall after 
achieving a victory for the Republican ticket in 
New York in 1800, when news came of the Fed- 
eralist strategy by which the party ■ lost seven 
electoral votes in Pennsylvania ! 

In view of the fact that the practical results of 
the working of the electoral machinery were for a 
long period after 1800 quite in accord with pre- 
vailing popular sentiment, it is a striking proof of 
the strength of the dissatisfaction with the system 
that such persistent efforts were made to obtain 
the passage of a constitutional amendment. Dur- 
ing Monroe's administration the agitation of the 
subject was carried on with great earnestness. 
Congress was urged to submit to the states a con- 
stitutional amendment, providing that all the elect- 
ors should be chosen by popular vote in districts. 
This proposition was before Congress from 18 13 



NA TIONALIZWG I NFL UENCE OF PAR TY 1 5 5 

to 1822. It passed the Senate by the requisite 
two-thirds majority in 181 8, in 18 19, and again in 
1822, but failed to pass the House. In 1819, it 
was passed to a third reading in the House by a 
vote of 103 to 59, but on the question of the pas- 
sage of the bill, received only 92 votes in favor to 
54 against — less than the necessary two-thirds. 

The truth was that political control had been 
gotten into a shape that was satisfactory to the 
dominant group of Southern politicians. Chief- 
Justice Marshall noticed early in Jefferson's ad- 
ministration that it was his policy to "embody 
himself with the House." This policy was so suc- 
cessful that it was the usage to make up the com- 
mittees with regard to the President's wishes, and 
to reserve important chairmanships for members 
who enjoyed his confidence. The original functions 
of the electoral college were quietly taken over by 
the administration, and the presidential succession 
was arranged through the agency of the Congres- 
sional Caucus. 

The American people are a singularly accommo- 
dating democracy, but only on condition that they 
are humored. There was no objection whatever 
when the Republican members of Congress met in 
1804, an d cut out the work of the electoral college 
by nominating Jefferson and Clinton. But in 
1808, when the Caucus chairman, Senator Bradley 
of Vermont, convoked it "in pursuance of the 
powers vested in me as president of the late con- 



156 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

vention of the Republican members of both Houses 
of "Congress," the newspapers at once began to 
harp upon his authoritative language, and to ask 
upon what meat this Caesar fed. This system of 
nomination aggravated the inequality of the electo- 
ral system by complicating with it the inequality 
that existed in the system of congressional elec- 
tions. While in some states the district system 
prevailed, in others the representatives were 
elected on a general ticket, constituting a solid 
party phalanx. The violation of democratic in- 
stincts, perpetrated by this diversity of political 
circumstances, caused a simultaneous demand for 
reform here, as well as in the electoral system, and 
the two propositions were generally coupled. In 
18 1 8, Senator Sanford of New York, by instruction 
of his state legislature, introduced an amendment 
providing for an uniform district system in the 
election both of members of the House and of 
presidential electors, the appointment of the two 
electors, allotted to each state in addition to those 
corresponding to the number of its representatives, 
to be made by the legislature. This was the one 
of the various propositions submitted from time to 
time which came the nearest to passing Congress. 
The combination of interests which established 
the Virginia dynasty was too strong to be seriously 
disturbed. The presidency was handed along from 
Jefferson to Madison, and from Madison to Mon- 
roe with some perturbation, but with no great dif- 



¥ 

NATIONALIZING INFLUENCE OF PARTY I$? 

ficulty. Pennsylvania, the heterogeneous character 
of whose population prevented the establishment 
of a family political control, like that of the Clintons 
in New York, was always attentively cared for by 
the Virginia dynasty, and her adhesion made it 
impossible to form a sectional combination against 
Southern ascendency. New York went into re- 
volt against the Congressional caucus, and set up 
De Witt Clinton against Madison when he was a 
candidate for the second time ; but, although the 
remains of the Federalist party rallied to Clin- 
ton, he was crushingly defeated, and then the 
federal patronage was used to overthrow his con- 
trol of New York politics. The state was brought 
back to its former subordinate relation, and again 
received the vice-presidency as its reward. 

The time was not ripe for a successful revolt 
against the rule of the Congressional Caucus until 
the older generation of statesmen should cease to 
furnish a presidential candidate upheld by their 
collective prestige. That period arrived when 
Monroe had received the usual renomination. 
Every one of the four candidates for the presiden- 
tial succession were men of the post-revolutionary 
age, and among them was a typical representa- 
tive of democratic aspirations. General Jackson's 
career had marked him as the natural leader of the 
democratic movement. His success as a military 
man had been in brilliant contrast with the pom- 
pous impotence of generals set up by the Wash- 



158 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

ington gentry. His victory at New Orleans over 
the flower of the British army uplifted the national 
pride which had been humiliated by the incapacity 
of the government. As a politician he represented 
the new states, the chief source of the democratic 
leaven which was stirring the whole mass of 
American society. In the splendid force of his 
indomitable manhood, he realized a popular ideal 
which his frontier training and his educational 
deficiencies made only the more genial and inspir- 
ing. 

Having found such a leader, the triumph of de- 
mocracy was inevitable. Although in six states, 
among them the great state of New York, there 
was no election by the people, yet such was the 
strength of the Jackson movement that he received 
the greatest number of electoral votes. Crawford, 
the nominee of the rump, which in 1824 was all 
that was left of the Congressional Caucus, stood 
third in the poll. John Quincy Adams, who stood 
second, was elected to the presidency by the 
House of Representatives, but he was the last 
President of the old order. The Jackson move- 
ment went on without intermission. Before 
Adams had sent his first message to Congress, the 
Tennessee legislature had nominated Jackson to 
the succession and he had formally accepted the 
nomination. The force of public sentiment com- 
pelled Vermont, New York, Georgia, and Louisi- 
ana to accept the popular system of choosing 



NATIONALIZING INFLUENCE OF PARTY 1 59 

electors, leaving only Delaware and South Caro- 
lina to continue the system of appointment by the 
legislature. Jackson was triumphantly elected, 
and the subserviency of the electoral machinery 
to popular control was forever established. Before 
the next presidential election, South Carolina, 
which had taken up an independent role and was 
outside of the communion of national party organ- 
ization, was the only state which retained the old 
system of appointment by the legislature. 

During Jackson's administration, efforts were 
made to obtain the passage of a constitutional 
amendment providing for a direct election by the 
people, but they were unavailing. The President 
repeatedly urged it on the attention of Congress, 
and the agitation of the subject continued for a 
number of years; but the conditions required for 
the amendment of the constitution are so many 
and so rigorous that in the ordinary course of poli- 
tics it is impossible to satisfy them. The end 
sought was, however, step by step attained through 
party activity. With the establishment of the 
system of nominating conventions, which took 
place at this period, the superior weight in party 
councils of a state which cast a solid electoral 
vote, over a state whose vote was apt to be divided 
by the district system, caused a general abandon- 
ment of the latter method. In 1832, the method 
of choosing electors was uniform throughout the 
country, with the exception of Maryland and South 



l60 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

Carolina. Before the next presidential election, 
Maryland abandoned the district system for the 
general ticket ; but South Carolina clung to the 
system of appointment by the legislature until 
after i860. Since the Civil War the general 
ticket has been everywhere used, except in Michi- 
gan in 1892. The Democrats, having secured the 
legislature at the election of 1890, revived the 
party trickery of the Federalist period, and passed 
a law establishing the district system ; but the 
next legislature repealed it. 

Lack of uniformity as regards the method of con- 
gressional elections ceased to disturb the Demo- 
cratic party after its triumph, as it speedily found 
a party advantage in the complete suppression of 
minorities in some of the states. The correction 
of this injustice was a fruit of the Whig victory of 
1840. In May, 1842, an act was passed requiring 
the election of members of the House by districts. 
At that time the members from New Jersey, 
Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, and Louisiana were 
elected on a general ticket. The national regula- 
tion of senatorial elections did not take place un- 
til the present Republican party 1 rose to national 
dominion. The law for this purpose was enacted 

1 There have been three Republican parties in United States 
history, viz. : The Republican party of Jefferson, of which the 
Democratic party claims to be the lineal successor; the National 
Republican party established by the Adams and Clay men, which 
was soon merged into the Whig party; and the Republican party 
still existing, organized in 1856. 



NATIOXALIZING INFLUENCE OF PARTY l6l 

July 25, 1866. Thus step by step the states have 
been brought into a uniformity of system in national 
politics, and this again has reacted in various ways 
upon state politics, so as to produce a general con- 
formity in political methods. 

A fact of the highest importance, which has been 
made manifest by this process, is the plastic nature 
of constitutional arrangements, however rigid their 
formal character. The electoral college has been 
entirely divested of its original functions, without 
a change of a letter of the law. Instead of pos- 
sessing discretionary powers, it has become as 
mechanical in its operation as a typewriter. The 
case is conclusive evidence of the ability of public 
opinion to modify the actual constitution to any 
extent required. It has also revealed wherein the 
true strength of a constitution resides. There is 
not a syllable in the organic or in the statute law 
to safeguard the present constitutional function of 
the electors, and yet such is the force of public 
sentiment that there is practically no danger that 
any elector will ever violate his party obligations, 
although it cannot be doubted that those obliga- 
tions have been established in opposition to the 
expectation of the constitution. 



CHAPTER XIII 

DEMOCRATIC REFORM 

At the time Jackson was elected to the presi- 
dential office, Congress had acquired great weight 
in the government, and had practically become the 
seat of administrative control. The idyllic con- 
ceptions of government proclaimed by Jefferson 
had not fared well in this rough and bustling 
world. A strong reaction in favor of more vig- 
orous and efficient government set in and made 
itself felt in Congress. In a speech delivered in 
the House, January 31, 18 16, Calhoun remarked : 
" In the policy of nations there are two extremes : 
one extreme, in which justice and moderation 
may sink in feebleness ; another, in which the 
lofty spirit which ought to animate all nations, 
particularly free ones, may mount up to military 
violence. These extremes ought to be equally 
avoided ; but of the two, I consider the first far 
the most dangerous." Such language indicated a 
change of heart in the Republican party. It 
began to lean to a policy which could be distin- 
guished from the old Federalist policy only by 
nice discrimination. Internal improvements were 
begun under Jefferson's administration, and before 

162 



/ 

DEMOCRATIC REFORM 1 63 

Madison left office another national bank had been 
chartered with the same general powers as the 
one of Hamilton's creation against which Jeffer- 
son had fulminated. Such changes provoked the 
taunt that the Republicans were turning Feder- 
alists, but in reply it was argued that with Repub- 
licans at the head of affairs things could be allowed 
that might justly have been regarded as dangerous 
while Federalists were in control. This ingenious 
view of the case was Madison's own, produced 
during his philosophic retirement at Montpellier 
after the close of his public career. Writing 
under date of May 22, 1823, he said, "It is true 
that, under a great change of foreign circumstances, 
and with a doubled population and more than 
doubled resources, the Republican party has 
been reconciled to certain measures and arrange- 
ments, which may be as proper now as they were 
premature and suspicious when urged by the cham- 
pions of Federalism." 

Notwithstanding such soothing lotions, the 
sense of consistency in the old Republican lead- 
ers smarted under the necessity of having to 
reconcile themselves to theories and measures 
which they had formerly denounced, and an easy 
way of avoiding it was to throw the responsibility 
on Congress. As for themselves, they admitted 
the desirability of enlarged powers of government, 
if only the constitutional authority could be found. 
So Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe «£ach recom- 



1 64 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

mended that the constitution should be amended 
for this purpose. Congress hearkened respect- 
fully, and then assumed the necessary authority. 
In 1806 the government began the construction 
of the Cumberland road. In 1808 Secretary Gal- 
latin submitted an elaborate plan of internal im- 
provements, including the construction of both 
roads and canals, which was received with enthu- 
siasm. The financial embarrassments caused by 
the embargo put an end to that scheme, but in 
1 8 16 a scheme of the same nature was brought 
forward in the House by Calhoun. The bill passed 
Congress, but was vetoed by Madison in the last 
hours of his administration. His message was in 
effect a plea to Congress to amend the constitution 
so as to obtain the undoubted right to enact such 
very desirable legislation. Nevertheless, the pol- 
icy of internal improvement continued to take 
shape in Congress. Monroe was so hard pressed 
that, in his turn, he was compelled to vindicate 
the consistency of his principles by sending in an 
elaborate veto message, which in a stately and 
dignified way performed the dialectic feat vulgarly 
known as beating the devil around the stump. 
After arguing at great length that he could not 
really be expected to sanction internal improve- 
ments unless authorized by an amendment to the 
constitution, he contrived this loophole for Con- 
gress : " My idea is that Congress have an unlim- 
ited power to raise money, and that in its appro- 



DEMOCRATIC REFORM 1 65 

priation they have a discretionary power, restricted 
only by the duty to appropriate it to purposes 
of common defence and of general, not local, na- 
tional, and state benefit." Congress promptly 
acted upon this hint and exercised its discretion- 
ary power. Items on account of internal improve- 
ments became a regular feature of the ordinary 
appropriation bills. 

Such an attitude of the executive department 
connived at the concentration of power and respon- 
sibility in Congress, and promoted the establish- 
ment of a parliamentary regime. The party ar- 
rangement by which the Congressional Caucus 
named the President, gave a parliamentary origin 
to the administration, and the government began 
to take its tone and character from Congress. 
The presidency seemed on the way to 'becoming 
the headship of a permanent bureaucracy, at the 
top of which stood the Cabinet. After the tradi- 
tional two terms had expired, the incumbent retired 
to private life, to be revered as a sage, and the Sec- 
retary of State was promoted to fill the vacancy. 
For more than a quarter of a century after the 
accession of Jefferson, the Cabinet resembled the 
Senate in being a continuous body, each president 
as he stepped into the office from the Cabinet 
retaining his old associates. Such was the per- 
manency of tenure that a sense of individual right 
in the retention of Cabinet office grew up. The 
force of this sentiment is displayed in some cor- 



1 66 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

respondence which took place between William 
Wirt and ex-President Monroe after the election 
of Jackson. Wirt had been attorney-general dur- 
ing the administration of Monroe and John Quincy 
Adams. He consulted Monroe whether he should 
be expected to offer his resignation to Jackson. 
Monroe expressed the opinion that from some 
points of view Cabinet officers " may be considered 
as holding an independent ground — that is, de- 
pending on their good conduct in office and not 
on the change of the incumbent." If the Cabinet 
were subject to change, "the danger is, by con- 
necting the members with the fortune of the 
incumbent, of making them the mere appendages 
and creatures of the individual." He concluded, 
however, that "as the heads of departments are 
counsellors* and wield important branches of the 
government, I do not see how they can remain in 
office without the President's sanction." 1 

The people naturally got into the habit of look- 
ing altogether to Congress for decisions on ques- 
tions of national policy. Furious contests took 
place in Congress in regard to the tariff, internal 
improvements, and slavery, without entering into 
the presidential election. All such issues were 
confined to the parliamentary arena. The struggle 
over the admission of Missouri, which from 1818 
to 1820 kept the country in boiling excitement, 
and caused the Representatives from the free states 

1 Kennedy's Memoirs of William Wirt, Vol.- II., pp. 221, 222. 



DEMOCRATIC REFORM 1 67 

to present a more solid front against slavery than 
at any time previous to the election of Lincoln, 
did not have any effect upon the presidential elec- 
tion. Monroe was reelected almost unanimously. 

Congress was strong, not only in the ascend- 
ency it had acquired in the management of public 
affairs, but also in the dignity and influence of its 
membership. Lustre was given to its proceedings 
by the presence of a singularly able group of 
statesmen, strong in personal force and parlia- 
mentary experience. It was the age of Clay, 
Webster, and Calhoun. 

The democratic upheaval which lifted Jackson 
to the presidency was a consequence of the great 
extension of the suffrage which had been going on 
since the beginning of the century. Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Mississippi, Alabama, Maine, and Missouri 
had entered the Union with manhood suffrage 
either specifically provided by law, or virtually 
established in practice. Their example had re- 
acted on the older states, so that a demand for 
like privileges to their citizens could not be denied 
by the politicians. Maryland in 18 10, Connecticut 
in 18 18, New York in 1821, and Massachusetts in 
1822 abolished their property qualifications. 1 The 
last stand of the statesmen of the old school was 
made against the spread of this movement, the 
survivors among the original leaders of the Fed- 
eralists and the Republicans joining hands in 

1 Cyclopaedia of Political Science, Vol. I., p. 774. 



1 68 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

defence of their order. John Adams, in Massa- 
chusetts, stood on common ground with Madison, 
Monroe, and Marshall in Virginia in resisting the 
breaking-down of property qualifications to the 
franchise. In 1830 there were 80,000 white male 
inhabitants of Virginia who were disfranchised. 
They were the mechanics and artisans of the com- 
monwealth, and their exclusion from the franchise 
was a perpetual inducement to this valuable class 
of citizens to emigrate to the West. But Madison 
made his last fight in opposition to their demand 
for the franchise, and, aided by the vigorous sup- 
port of Monroe and Marshall, carried the constitu- 
tional convention of his state in favor of his views, 
so that the freehold qualification was continued in 
Virginia for twenty years more. 1 

In most of the states, however, property qualifi- 
cations had become either nominal in amount or 
in enforcement. At the same time population 
had increased with amazing rapidity. The census 
of 1830 showed that the 4,000,000 of 1790 had 
grown into 13,000,000. Jackson's triumph was 
the result of political forces generated by this 
great increase of the electorate. It was an earth- 
quake extending over the entire area of politics. 
The old Republican party was shattered to frag- 
ments. The old relations between Congress and 
the presidency were destroyed. The whole struct- 

1 Thorpe's " A Century's Struggle for the Franchise," Harper's 
Magazine, January, 1897. 



DEMOCRATIC REFORM 1 69 

ure of administration was shaken and displaced. A 
period of reconstruction necessarily followed. The 
force which regulated the process was supplied by 
the establishment in national politics of the prin- 
ciple of rotation in office, already reduced to prac- 
tice in the politics of New York, and to a large 
extent adopted in all the states outside the area of 
Southern plantation politics. 

Although its definite assertion in national poli- 
tics was somewhat of an innovation, the doctrine 
was not a new one. It had been advocated for 
centuries as a sovereign remedy for political cor- 
ruption. A great deal was made of it in the 
political writings of the Commonwealth period in 
England. Harrington in his " Oceana," proposed 
that every officer, magistrate, or representative 
should be excluded from his place of power and 
trust for a term equal to that of his employment. 
Burgh, whose " Political Disquisitions" was the 
text-book of reform in the last quarter of the 
eighteenth century, elaborately set forth the bene- 
fits to be derived from the application of this 
principle. John Adams, in some thoughts on 
government published in 1776, favored the prin- 
ciple "if the society has a sufficient number of 
suitable characters to supply the great number of 
vacancies." Jefferson favored rotation in office, 
to prevent the creation of a bureaucracy. Some 
enunciation of the principle was a staple article of 
the bill of rights which it was the fashion to affix 



/ 

170 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

to the state constitutions adopted by the colonies 
after the Declaration of Independence. During 
Monroe's administration, this principle obtained 
practical recognition in the federal service by the 
passage of the act of 1820, limiting the commis- 
sions of district attorneys, collectors, naval officers, 
navy agents, surveyors of customs, paymasters, 
and some other classes of officers, to a term of 
four years. The ground on which this law had 
been enacted was the protection it would afford to 
the public revenues by compelling the settlement 
of accounts at regular intervals ; but what was that, 
it was now asked, but an admission of the efficacy 
of the principle of rotation in office ? 

What with Jefferson had been abstract philos- 
ophy, Jackson was willing and able to put into 
practice. The circumstances of administration in 
Jefferson's time had restrained such tendencies, 
but now the circumstances were such as to make 
them peculiarly energetic. Reform was the watch- 
word of the new administration, and heedless of 
the shrieks of remonstrance, the reform of the 
civil service was carried on unflinchingly. The 
number of removals during the first year of Jack- 
son's administration is variously computed at from 
690 to 734 — less than the number of changes which 
now soon follow the installation of a reform ad- 
ministration ; but the contrast with the behavior 
of previous administrations in this respect was so 
startling that the event has become the mark of a 



DEMOCRATIC REFORM \Jl 

new era in politics. The changes that took place 
were far from being a clean sweep. Benton avers 
that, with all his removals, Jackson still left a 
majority in office against him, even in the execu- 
tive departments at Washington. Nevertheless, 
the practice of making changes in office on party- 
grounds had been established as a national system. 
The effect of the distinct conversion of the gov- 
ernment patronage into a party fund was obviously 
pernicious in its adulteration of the standard of 
official worth. Scandalous exhibitions of the con- 
sequences in this respect were not long delayed. 
At the same time it is incontestable that in this 
way the means were obtained of readjusting the 
political system in conformity with the changed 
conditions. The energy of the force is exhibited 
by the results of its operation. The wrangling 
factions were rapidly aligned in party ranks. 
There was no opening for an independent role. 
Factions had to choose one side or the other, 
or be cut off from present enjoyment or future 
possibility of office. Appropriate party issues 
were shaped by executive policy. The adminis- 
tration of the patronage on party grounds carries 
with it the power of denning party issues, for it 
implies on the part of the appointing power a 
conception of what constitutes party membership. 
Whatever else may be said of it, the test has the 
advantage of being practical and efficient. Dis- 
senters may contend that they represent the true 



172 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

party tradition, but that does not help their case 
any. They must submit or go into opposition ; 
and unless they are able to wrest control of the 
party organization from the President, they must 
organize a party organization of their own. 

Some appearance of continuity with the party 
of Jefferson had been preserved by the very 
magnitude of Jackson's triumph. Such was the 
strength of the movement that it had, in the 
modern phrase, "captured the organization," tak- 
ing over its name so as to enable the new party 
to set up the claim of being the direct lineal suc- 
cessor of the Republican party of Jefferson. For 
a time the title of Republican was retained in use 
as part, at least, of the party name, and is still so 
retained officially, but the organization soon be- 
came known simply as the Democratic party. 
The opposition to Jackson claimed to be the true 
Jeffersonian Republican party, and it was at first 
known as the National Republican party ; but in 
broadening out so as to include all the elements 
of opposition, it finally abandoned that title for 
the good old revolutionary party name of Whig. 
The Whig party was a coalition of the National 
Republicans, or Adams and Clay men, with the 
Anti-Masons, Conservatives, and Nullifiers. The 
Whigs, however, always contended that they rep- 
resented the true Jeffersonian principle — the 
maintenance of the constitutional checks and bal- 
ances of power. Both Whigs and Democrats 



DEMOCRATIC REFORM 1 73 

were really new_parties, but the Democrats ob- 
tained possession of the Jeffersonian tradition. 

It was soon made evident that the basis of 
administrative control had been shifted from Con- 
gress to the presidency. The reluctance of Con- 
gress to make a party issue of the rechartering of 
the Bank of the United States was strongly ex- 
hibited. The President forced that issue upon it. 
To the will of Congress, the President opposed his 
will, and his will prevailed. When Congress re- 
fused to authorize the removal of the government 
deposits, the President himself assumed that au- 
thority. The Senate placed upon its records a 
censure of his acts. Inside of three years it had 
to reverse its judgment and expunge the censure 
from its records. Thus at a time when its pres- 
tige was at the highest, and it had been accus- 
tomed to exercising a controlling influence in 
the government, Congress was overborne by the 
weight of presidential authority. There was no 
uncertainty as to the nature of the instrument by 
which the power of the presidential office was 
made effectual. During the debate of January, 
1837, on the final passage of the expunging reso- 
lution, Henry Clay said : — 

"The Senate has no army, no navy, no patron- 
age, no lucrative offices, nor glittering honors to 
bestow. Around us there is no swarm of greedy 
expectants rendering us homage,, anticipating our 
wishes, and ready to execute our commands. How 



174 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

is it with the President ? Is he powerless ? He 
is felt from one extremity to the other of this 
republic. By means of principles which he has 
introduced, and innovations which he has made 
in our institutions, alas ! but too much counte- 
nanced by Congress and a confiding people, he 
exercises uncontrolled the power of the state. In 
one hand he holds the purse and in the other 
brandishes the sword of the country ! Myriads 
of dependents and partisans scattered over the 
land are ever ready to sing hosannahs to him 
and to laud to the skies whatever he does. He 
has swept over the government like a tropical 
tornado." 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE VETO POWER 

The state of mind in which the framers of the 
constitution addressed themselves to the task of 
forming a national government was such as to 
cause them to attach great importance to the veto 
power, to make it strong, searching, and effective. 
They had been familiar with its exercise in colo- 
nial relations with the British government, and 
the character of legislation since such control had 
been removed was regarded as demonstrating the 
necessity of reestablishing it. The original propo- 
sition of the Virginia plan was that the national 
legislature should have a right to negative all state 
laws contravening national functions ; then in their 
turn the acts of the national legislature, including 
such as negatived state laws, should be subject to 
the approval of a Council of Revision, to be com- 
posed of "the Executive and a convenient number 
of the national judiciary." The opposition of the 
delegates from the smaller states was so stubborn 
that the scheme of direct national control over 
state legislation was gradually reduced until only 
two marks of it were left in the constitution as it 
was finally adopted. One of these is the clause 

i75 



176 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

giving Congress power to make or alter regulations 
prescribed by state authority for elections of Sena- 
tors and Representatives ; the other is a clause 
relative to state imposts on imports or exports, 
providing that "all such laws shall be subject to 
the revision and control of Congress." 

The veto power, as attached to the presidential 
office, had a different experience in passing through 
the constitutional convention. Although the de- 
bates were carried on by taking up in their order 
the propositions of the Virginia plan, the com- 
mittee of detail seems to have used the draught of 
a constitution submitted by Charles Pinckney of 
South Carolina as a skeleton which was gradually 
filled out according to the resolves of the conven- 
tion. Pinckney's original draught gave the Presi- 
dent power to veto bills substantially as was 
eventually provided in Article I, Section 7, of the 
constitution, the only new matter added by the 
convention being the clauses requiring the vote 
to be taken by ayes and nays, and entered upon 
the journals of the two Houses. The veto power, 
in the shape it finally assumed as regards bills, 
closely resembles the corresponding section in the 
constitution of Massachusetts, adopted in 1780. 
In "The Federalist," Hamilton remarks that this 
power is "precisely the same with that of the 
governor of Massachusetts whose constitution, 
as to this article, seems to have been the original 
from which the convention has copied." The 



THE VETO POWER IJJ 

clause of the constitution of the United States, 
conferring also a veto power over "every order, 
resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of 
the Senate and House of Representatives may be 
necessary," however, stands alone. In the Massa- 
chusetts constitution, " bills " and " resolves " are 
coupled as subjects of the veto power. The added 
provision in the constitution of the United States 
has peculiar force. It was put in towards the 
latter part of the proceedings, when the conven- 
tion was reviewing its work to see where any 
weak points were to be found. Among a number 
of resolutions adopted for the guidance of the 
committee of detail was the following : " Resolved, 
that the national executive shall have a right to 
negative any legislative act ; which shall not be 
afterwards passed, unless by two-third parts of 
each branch of the national legislature." In satis- 
faction of this resolution, the committee draughted 
the constitutional provisions as they now stand, 
making the President a party to every legislative 
proceeding requiring the concurrence of the two 
Houses. This was perfectly well understood at 
the time. When the phraseology of the enacting 
clause of the laws was under consideration, at the 
first session of the Senate, Ellsworth of Connecti- 
cut, who had been a member of the convention, 
argued that the President should be named as a 
party to the enactment, because of "the conspic- 
uous part he would act in the field of legislation, 



178 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

as all laws must pass in review before him, and 
were subject to his revision and correction." 1 

In thus reviving royal prerogative as an attri- 
bute of the presidential office, there was consider- 
able uneasiness among the founders of the national 
government as to the success of the attempt. In 
" The Federalist," great pains were taken to recon- 
cile public sentiment to so autocratic an authority. 
Hamilton explained that such a power is necessary 
to protect the executive from encroachments by 
the other departments of government. The fear 
that it might enable the executive to encroach 
upon congressional authority was treated as chi- 
merical. He said : — 

" The superior weight and influence of the leg- 
islative body in a free government, and the hazard 
to the executive in a trial of strength with that 
body, afford a satisfactory security that the nega- 
tive would generally be employed with great cau- 
tion ; and that, in its exercise, there would oftener 
be room for a charge of timidity than of rashness. 
A king of Great Britain, with all his train of 
sovereign attributes, and with all the influence 
he draws from a thousand sources, would at this 
day hesitate to put a negative upon the joint reso- 
lutions of the two houses of Parliament. ... If 
a magistrate, so powerful and well fortified as 
a British monarch, would have scrupled about the 
exercise of the power under consideration, how 

1 Maclay's Diary, p. 19. 



THE VETO POWER 1 79 

much greater, caution may be reasonably expected 
in a President of the United States, clothed for a 
short period of four years with the executive author- 
ity of a government wholly and purely republican." 1 
It was a fortunate circumstance that the first 
veto, which was exercised upon an apportionment 
bill, fell in with the interests of the South and 
received the support of Mr. Jefferson and his 
political connection, so that in this case there was 
an overpowering concentration of political influence 
in support of the President. Jefferson remarks in 
his " Anas " that "a few of the hottest friends of 
the bill expressed passion, but the majority were 
satisfied, and both in and out of doors it gave 
pleasure to have at length an instance of the neg- 
ative being exercised." Up to Jackson's time it 
was exercised sparingly and cautiously, rather in 
the way of counsel than of opposition. Neither' / 
Jefferson nor the Adamses used the veto power at 
all. Madison and Monroe used it to express their j 
dissent from the broad doctrines which, under 
the lead of Clay and Calhoun in his liberal early 
period, Congress was adopting in regard to internal 
improvements ; but there was no settled resistance 
to the deliberate purposes of Congress. There 
were in all nine instances only of the exercise 
of the veto power up to the time Jackson became 
President. In his hands it ceased to be a mere 
advisory function, as with Madison and Monroe. 

1 The Federalist, No. 73. 



l8o POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

It developed a terrible power. His .twelve vetoes 
descended upon Congress like the blows of an iron 
flail. 

The parliamentary leaders raged against a power 
which could be put to such use. Henry Clay 
pointed out that " it is a feature of our government 
borrowed from a prerogative of the British king." 
He declared: "The veto is. hardly reconcilable 
with the genius of representative government. It 
is totally irreconcilable with it if it is to be em- 
ployed in respect to the expediency of measures, 
as well as their constitutionality." If such be- 
havior should be tolerated, "the government will 
have been transformed into an elective monarchy." 
Webster devoted some of his strongest speeches 
to an exhibition of the dangers to the constitution 
from executive encroachments. "The President 
carries on the government ; all the rest are sub- 
contractors. ... A Briareus sits in the centre of 
our system, and with his hundred hands touches 
everything, moves everything, controls everything." 
Calhoun denounced the arrogance of the President's 
attitude. "He claims to be not only the repre- 
sentative, but the immediate representative, of the 
American people ! What effrontery ! What bold- 
ness of assertion ! The immediate representative ? 
Why, he never received a vote from the American 
people. He was elected by electors — the colleges." 

Outside of Congress, the agitation against the 
President's vetoes was carried on with vehemence. 



THE VETO POWER l8l 

The newspapers teemed with denunciations of the 
bank vetoes. " No king of England," said an edito- 
rial article in Nile's Register, "has dared a practical 
use of the veto for about two hundred years, or 
more, and Louis Philippe would hardly retain his 
throne three days, were he to veto a deliberate 
act of the two French chambers, though supported 
by an army of one hundred thousand men." Under 
the head of "Effects of the Veto," many news- 
papers established a regular department of reports 
of business depression and industrial distress. The 
veto message and the speeches of Webster, Clay, 
Clayton, and Ewing upon it were used as campaign 
documents. The supporters of Jackson did not 
evade the issue. They also used the veto message 
as a campaign document, and as a result of this 
combination of effort no public document ever had 
a more thorough distribution. The people sus- 
tained their President. Jackson's triumph was 
even more decisive than before. He received 219 
electoral votes out of 286. Of the states which 
had been opposed to him before, he carried Maine 
and New Hampshire. Of the states which he 
carried before, he lost South Carolina, where there 
was no election by the people, and Kentucky, 
which in the new division of parties stood by her 
great leader, Henry Clay. 

Support of the veto power became a Democratic 
principle. The Whig party was timid of confronting 
that issue ; the Democratic party was always ready 



1 82 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

to present it. After their great victory in 1840, 
the plans of the Whig leaders were paralyzed by 
the veto power in Tyler's hands. In January, 
1842, Clay proposed constitutional amendments, 
empowering Congress to pass a bill over the presi- 
dential veto by a majority vote. He supported 
his proposals in a carefully prepared speech. His 
argument, setting forth the colossal proportions 
which the presidential authority had obtained by 
virtue of the veto power, was a strong one. In 
legislative strength it made the President the equal 
of anything short of a two-thirds majority of both 
Houses. He contended with great force that 
" really and in practice this veto power drew after 
it the power of initiating laws, and in its effects 
must ultimately amount to conferring on the exec- 
utive the entire legislative power of the govern- 
ment. With the power to initiate and the power 
to consummate legislation, to give vitality and 
vigor to every law, or to strike it dead at his 
pleasure, the President must ultimately become 
the ruler of the nation." 

Notwithstanding' this weighty exposition of the 
importance of the issue, the sole reference to it, 
ventured in the Whig platform of 1844, was the 
mention of " a reform of executive usurpations " 
as one of the principles of the party. The Demo- 
cratic convention, which met soon after, was 
bluntly outspoken. One of the resolutions adopted 
declared that " we are decidedly opposed to taking 



THE VETO POWER 1 83 

from the President the qualified veto power, by 
which he is enabled, under restrictions and respon- 
sibilities amply sufficient to guard the public inter- 
est, to suspend the passage of a bill, whose merits 
cannot secure the approval of two-thirds of the 
Senate and House of Representatives, until the 
judgment of the people can be obtained thereon." 
This resolution was specifically reaffirmed in 1848, 
1852, and 1856. The Whig deliverance of 1844 
was, however, the last intimation of an appeal to 
the people in opposition to the veto power. 

The use of the veto power has increased until 
its exercise has become an ordinary executive 
function. In our own time there is no power of 
government which displays more vigor. At the 
time the constitution was adopted, only two states 
conferred the veto power upon executive authority, 

— New York and Massachusetts. At the time 
Clay proposed his constitutional amendment, only 
nine of the twenty-six states then in the Union 
gave to the governor such a veto power over bills 
as the President possessed. At present the gov- 
ernor still has no veto power in Rhode Island, 
North Carolina, and Ohio. The veto is annulled 
by a majority vote of the legislature in nine states, 

— Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Indiana, Ken- 
tucky, New Jersey, Tennessee, West Virginia, and 
Vermont. In Delaware, Maryland, and Nebraska 
it takes three-fifths of the members of both Houses 
to pass a bill over the veto, and in the remaining 



1 84 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

thirty states it requires two-thirds of the votes of 
each House to overrule the veto. Not only is it 
the tendency of American constitutional law to 
favor the deposit of such an authority in the exec- 
utive department, but there is a growing disposi- 
tion to stimulate its exercise. In thirteen states 
the governor is specifically authorized to veto 
items of appropriation bills. In some states, nota- 
bly New York and Pennsylvania, it may be exer- 
cised upon bills after the legislature has adjourned, 
thus leaving it quite uncontrolled and absolute in 
its operation as regards the legislature, and in the 
states named the veto power is now chiefly exer- 
cised in this field. Of the acts passed during one 
session of the New York assembly, 335 were vetoed 
by Governor Hill after its adjournment. In the 
official publication of the vetoes by Governor 
Hastings of Pennsylvania in 1897, fifty-four pages 
are occupied by veto messages sent to the legislat- 
ure, while the curt vetoes filed after adjournment 
occupy 238 pages. The revisionary nature of the 
veto power is strikingly displayed in this field of 
its exercise, by the fact that it is at times used 
to reduce particular items of appropriation bills. 
Thus in a number of cases, Governor Hastings 
refused to pass certain items until the beneficiaries 
agreed to execute and file their acquiescence in an 
abatement of the appropriation. 

The veto power vested in the President of the 
United States has not as yet been exercised ex- 



THE VETO POWER 1 85 

cept as regards bills and joint resolutions ; but 
every vote of the two Houses is subject to it, and 
unless it can be successfully contended that the 
items of appropriation bills obtain place and en- 
actment without the vote of the two Houses, they 
are fit subjects for the exercise of the veto power. 
Action, which in effect occupies this position, was 
taken by President Grant. On August 14, 1876, 
he sent a message to the House, relative to the 
River and Harbor bill, in which he expressly stated 
that if he regarded it as obligatory upon the exec- 
utive to expend all the money therein appropri- 
ated, he should have returned the bill without his 
approval. Referring to the fact that " many ap- 
propriations are made for works of purely private or 
local interests, in no sense national," he remarked ; 
" I cannot give my sanction to these, and will take 
care that during my term of office no public money 
shall be expended upon them." 

This doctrine, that appropriations are discretion- 
ary and not mandatory, has found expression in 
Congress, as it is a convenient apology for extrava- 
gance, and passes the responsibility on from Con- 
gress to the executive. In the course of a debate 
on the River and Harbor bill, June 3, 1896, Senator 
Sherman remarked : — 

" I cannot conceive a case where one of the ordi- 
nary regular appropriation bills should be vetoed 
by the President ; for, after all, it is a mere permis- 
sion granted by Congress to the executive officers 






1 86 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

to do certain things. It does not require them to 
do it, but only permits them to do it, and author- 
izes the money to be paid out of the common 
treasury of the United States for that purpose. 
But if the officers who are allowed discretion in 
the matter say, ' There is no money in the treas- 
ury for that purpose ; it is otherwise appropriated,' 
or if the President of the United States should see 
proper to say, 'That object of appropriation is not 
a wise one ; I do not concur that the money ought 
to be expended,' that is the end of it." 

While the veto power has had an astonishing 
development in this country, the kingly preroga- 
tive upon which it was modelled has disappeared. 
Neither George III nor any of his successors 
ever used it. There is no instance of a veto from 
the crown upon a law of Parliament since Queen 
Anne's reign. In the hands of the President, who, 
in the estimate of "The Federalist," would have to 
be even more cautious in exercising this power than 
the British king, it is in robust operation. Either 
monarchical prerogative has found a more congen- 
ial soil in the republic than in the kingdom whose 
sovereignty was thrown off, or else a remarkable 
transformation has taken place in the constitution 
of the presidency, and instead of an embodiment 
of prerogative, it has become a representative insti- 
tution. The history of the phases of the develop- 
ment of the veto power shows that the latter view 
of the case is certainly the true one. Jackson's 



THE VETO POWER 1 87 

democratic instinct correctly informed him of the 
source of his power when he told the Senate that 
it was " a body not directly amenable to the peo- 
ple," while the President "is the direct representa- 
tive of the people, elected by the people, and 
responsible to them." 

All the circumstances go to show that the veto 
power is sustained, not by strength of prerogative, 
but by the representative character of the presi- 
dential office. The development of executive 
authority has been sustained by public sentiment 
because it has forged an instrument of popular 
control. Congress represents locality ; the Presi- 
dent represents the nation. Congressional author- 
ity is founded on a combination of interests which 
the people instinctively feel to be beyond their 
control. The people, parcelled into districts, elect 
their delegates, but they have nothing to do with 
the places those delegates may obtain in the shuf- 
fle. When the units are supplied, the politicians 
work out the sum to suit themselves. Presiden- 
tial authority is founded on the direct mandate of 
the people. This is the secret of the strength of 
the veto power. Levi Woodbury, who was a 
cabinet officer under Jackson and Van Buren, and 
became a justice of the supreme court, in a speech 
at Faneuil Hall October 19, 1841, described the 
constitutional function exactly when he said, 
" The veto power is the people's tribunative pre- 
rogative speaking again through their executive." 



CHAPTER XV 

THE PRESIDENCY AS A REPRESENTATIVE INSTITU- 
TION 

The new character impressed upon the presiden- 
tial office by the democratic movement at once 
made it the basis of political control. Every 
national party which has come into existence since 
Jackson's time, no matter how purely legislative 
its programme, has felt impelled to nominate a 
presidential ticket. Unless it is able to control 
the presidential office, no party can accomplish its 
purposes. The Whig party, which was animated 
by the old spirit of parliamentary control, was the 
first party to find this out by experience. In elect- 
ing Harrison in 1840, it secured a President who 
fully assented to the parliamentary principle of 
government. In his inaugural address he con- 
tended that by no fair construction could anything 
" be found to constitute the President a part of the 
legislative power." His duty to recommend legis- 
lation was simply " a privilege which he holds in 
common with every other citizen." He regarded 
it as " preposterous to suppose that a thought 
could for a moment have been entertained that 
the President, placed at the capital, in the centre 

188 



THE PEOPLE'S REPRESENTATIVE 1 89 

of the country, could better understand the wants 
and wishes of the people than their own immediate 
representatives"; so, therefore, "to assist or con- 
trol Congress in its ordinary legislation could not 
have been the motive for conferring the veto 
power on the President." In particular he held 
that the President " should never be looked to for 
schemes of finance." 

This was very satisfactory doctrine to the Whig 
party leaders in Congress, but there was no way by 
which it could be made obligatory. When Har- 
rison died, his doctrine died with him. Tyler, 
although elected on the same ticket with Harrison, 
did not scruple to use the veto power to defeat the 
Whig schemes of finance adopted by Congress. 
Polk, the next President, had occasion to review the 
whole subject of the relations between the Presi- 
dent and the Congress, and in his message of ; 
December 5, 1848, he laid down the constitutional 
principles governing the case as follows : — 

"The people, by the constitution, have com- 
manded the President, as much as they have com- 
manded the legislative branch of the government, to 
execute their will. They have said to him in the 
constitution, which they require he shall take a 
solemn oath to support, that if Congress pass any bill 
which he cannot approve, ' he shall return it to the 
House in which it originated, with his objections.' 
If it be said that the representatives in the popu- 
lar branch of Congress are chosen directly by the 



/ 



190 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

people, it is answered, the people elect the Presi- 
dent. If both Houses represent the states and 
the people, so does the President. The President 
represents in the executive department the whole 
people of the United States, as each member of 
the legislative department represents portions of 
them." 

The course of our political history since Jack- 
son's time has conformed to the constitutional 
principle that the President is the direct repre- 
sentative of the people as a whole. The establish- 
ment of this principle was accompanied by a marked 
change of popular habit in the exercise of the suf- 
frage. Originally, the House of Representatives 
was not only the designated medium for the ex- 
pression of public sentiment, but in most of the 
states there was no means of popular participation 
in the government of the United States, save in 
the election of members of the House. And even 
in states where presidential electors were chosen 
by the vote of the people, the interest in such elec- 
tions was small as compared with that taken in 
congressional elections. Nile s Register of No- 
vember 1 8, 1820, reports that very few votes had 
been polled for presidential electors in Maryland 
and Virginia. In the whole city of Richmond 
only seventeen votes were cast. Yet this was the 
period when the country was convulsed over the 
admission of Missouri with a slavery constitu- 
tion, and congressional elections were attended by 



THE PEOPLE'S REPRESENTATIVE 191 

great excitement. Even during the presidential 
election of 1824, with four candidates in the field, 
each with enthusiastic partisans, the total vote cast 
in Virginia was less than 15,000; and Massachu- 
setts, which had cast more than 66,000 votes for 
governor in 1823, cast only 37,000 votes at the 
presidential election. Ohio polled 50,024 votes ; 
but the election for governor two years before had 
drawn out 10,000 more votes, and in the same year 
as the presidential election the vote for governor 
aggregated 76,634. The Jacksonian era marks the 
beginning of a concentration of popular interest 
on the presidential election. After 1824, the pop- 
ular vote^shows a rapid increase. The aggregate 
in 1824 was 356,038. The aggregate vote cast by 
the same states in 1828 was 817,409. The in- 
crease in some of the states was amazing. In 
New Hampshire, the vote rose from 4750 to 
45,056; in Connecticut, from 9565 to 18,286; in 
Pennsylvania, from 47,255 to 152,500; in Ohio, 
from 50,024 to 130,993. The popular tendency 
thus suddenly developed has been constant. It is 
now a commonplace of politics that the presiden- 
tial vote is the largest cast at any election. In 
the presidential election of 1896 there were cast 
for President 218,658 votes more than were cast 
for Congressmen. When it is considered that the 
practice of putting presidential and congressional 
candidates on the same ballot is almost general, 
this popular disposition is certainly very remarkable. 



* 



192 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

This change in the attitude of the people towards 
the President took away much of the importance 
of Congress, and had effects upon its character 
which soon became very manifest. The framers of 
the constitution anticipated for the House of Repre- 
sentatives a brilliant career, something like that of 
the House of Commons. The natural ascendency 
which the House would possess as the immediate 
representative of the people, is the stock argu- 
ment of "The Federalist" in justification of the 
exclusive privileges conferred upon the President 
and the Senate. It was held that no danger to 
the constitution could result from an excess of 
power in them, since "the House of Representa- 
tives with the people on their side will at all times 
be able to bring back the constitution to its primi- 
tive form and principles" ; while, on the other hand, 
the coordinate branches of the government could 
not withstand the encroachments of the House 
without special safeguards. 1 The result, on the 
whole, during the early period of the republic, 
verified this calculation. Although never develop- 
ing such an authority as that of the House of 
Commons, the House of Representatives was the 
most important branch of the government. The 
Senate was composed of provincial notables who 
sat as a privy council, transacting business behind 
closed doors. The floor of the House was the 

1 The Federalist, No. 63. 



THE PEOPLE'S REPRESENTATIVE 1 93 

field where political talent might obtain distinc- 
tion. The Senate became tired of its dull .seclu- 
sion from popular interest, and in 1799 admitted 
the public to its debates ; but the superior prestige 
of the House was maintained until the Jacksonian 
era. Calhoun remarks that the House was origi- 
nally "a much more influential body than the 
Senate." 1 Benton says, "For the first thirty 
years it was the controlling branch of the govern- 
ment, and the one on whose action the public 
eye was fixed." 2 The democratic revolution over- 
threw the pillars of its greatness. It ceased to 
make presidents ; it ceased to control them. In- 
stead of being the seat of party authority, — the 
motive force of the administration, — it became in- 
this respect merely a party agency. National 
party purposes, having to seek their fulfilment 
through the presidential office, had nothing to 
ask of the House but obedience to party demands, 
and at once began the task of devising machinery 
to enforce submission. 

Burke long ago had foretold, " If we do not per- 
mit our members to act upon a very enlarged view 
of things, we shall at length infallibly degrade our 
national representation into a confused and scuffling 
bustle of local agency." Precisely such a change 
rapidly took place in the House of Representatives. 



1 Calhoun's Works, Vol. I., p. 341. 

2 Thirty Years' View, Vol. I., p. 208. 
o 



194 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

Its decadence was rapid and soon became noto- 
rious. 1 

From this period dates the disposition of the 
people to make use of the House to reflect their 
passing moods rather than their settled habits of 
thinking. The early contests between the Fed- 
eralists and the Republicans were faction struggles 
that did not establish strict party lines in the House. 
Although in the Fourth Congress the opponents of 
the administration were strong enough to vote down 
a resolution of confidence in the President, a Fed- 
eralist was chosen speaker. Under the Virginia 
dynasty the political complexion of the House Vas 
constant, and its membership exhibited a stability 
of composition approximating that of the House 
of Commons at the same period. Henry Clay was 
elected speaker five times in succession, and might 
have continued to hold the position had he so de- 
sired. But after the Jackson upheaval the House 
became the shuttlecock of politics. A graphic 
delineation of changes of party strength appears 
like storm waves in ascent and reflux. In the 
Twenty-first Congress the party division in the 
House was 152 to 39 ; in the Twenty-second Con- 
gress, 98 to 97. In the Twenty-fifth Congress the 
majority in the House was Democratic ; in the 
Twenty-sixth, it was Whig. In the Twenty-seventh 

1 Benton makes some doleful comments on this fact, which he 
greatly deplores and tries to extenuate. Thirty Years' View, Vol. I., 
Chap. LVII. 



THE PEOPLE'S REPRESENTATIVE 1 95 

Congress, it was Whig ; in the Twenty-eighth, it 
was Democratic. In the Twenty-ninth Congress, it 
was Democratic ; in the Thirtieth, it was Whig. 
During the Civil War the waves were flattened 
down, so to speak ; but the fluctuation was still 
remarkable. 1 Since the reconstruction period the 
vicissitudes of party strength in Congress are so 
enormous that they simply daze and confound the 
politicians. They come in exultingly at one elec- 
tion, on a wave of victory that seems to have swept 
away the opposition, and a few years later they find 
themselves swept from power in a condition of 
utter rout and demoralization, wondering what on 
earth has befallen them. 

So periodic is the fluctuation of public sentiment 
that it is expected as a matter of course that " the 
off-year" — the congressional election intervening 
between presidential elections — will show a gain 
in the strength of the opposition. Nothing being 
at stake but the composition of the House, the 
particular interests of localities are not so heavily 
weighed upon by the necessities of national party 
interest, so that faction aims and individual pre- 
dilections have more to do with shaping results. 
The popular vote is smaller, opposition is active 
and ardent, while support is languid, so that it is 
a common thing to hear of candidates defeated by 
"the stay-at-home vote." The popular mandate is 

1 Johnston's American Politics gives the congressional strength 
of parties down to 1889. 



196 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

delivered at the presidential election. Many peo- 
ple do not vote at any other time. Other elections, 
so far as they bear upon national affairs, are used 
for correction, warning, or reproof. 

Alexander Hamilton once remarked to a friend 
that the time will " assuredly come when every 
vital question of the state will be merged in the 
question, 'Who shall be the next President?'" 1 
That time arrived when the President became the 
elect of the people, and the presidential office be- 
came the organ of the will of the nation. 

1 History, by John C. Hamilton, Vol. III., pp. 335, 346. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE CONVENTION SYSTEM 

An immediate effect of the conversion of the 
presidency into a representative institution was 
the establishment of the convention system. It is 
a typical development of American politics, and its 
origin and growth as the result of the operation of 
democratic forces may be distinctly traced. 

The idea was an old one, but was long ineffectual, 
owing to popular jealousy of any mediation in 
the election of public officials. In Pennsylvania 
in 1792, as the time for the election of represent- 
atives and of presidential electors approached, it 
was proposed that a convention should be held 
" of conferees from all parts of the state to meet 
at Lancaster and fix on suitable candidates to be 
recommended to the choice of the citizens." The 
object was to secure " such an unanimity of 
suffrage among the electors as would return to 
the House of Representatives of the United 
States — men whose attachment to the federal 
constitution, whose concern in the national 
prosperity, and whose knowledge of its best in- 
terests, should qualify them to administer that 

197 



198 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

government." 2 The Republican papers at once 
opened fire on this proposition. "A Mechanic" 
sarcastically commends the plan because it re- 
lieves the common people of any concern in poli- 
tics, by providing them with a ticket ready made 
to their hands. "Sidney" tells the people: "A 
congregation of men to frame a ticket, sanctioned 
by you, is in fact a body of electors, clothed 
with your authority. Are you incapable of judg- 
ing for yourselves, that you must hazard a transfer 
of your most important rights?" Hugh H. Brack- 
enridge, the distinguished Republican leader of 
western Pennsylvania, dissected the proposal with 
arguments that are as keen to-day as when first 
penned. After presenting considerations, showing 
the improbability that the conferees would be so 
chosen as fairly to represent the people of their 
districts, he adds that even if they were, the 
system would not work fairly, " because the persons 
that go forward will have attachments and resent- 
ments, interests and partialities, hopes and fears, 
which those at home know nothing of, but which 
will be fully exercised when they come to form a 
ticket." "Leave it," he concluded, "to every 
man to frame his ticket, or be immediately in- 
structed by others how to do it ; but let it be his 
own act, and there is no deception or injustice." 

These comments fairly set forth popular senti- 
ment, but practical experience was constantly 

1 The American Museum, Philadelphia, for August, 1792. 



THE CONVENTION SYSTEM 1 99 

showing that to compass party ends means were 
necessary for the concentration of votes in the 
party interest, or else people of like minds on 
political issues might defeat their desire by dis- 
agreement in the selection of representatives. 
Hence caucuses and mass-meetings were held, and 
committees of correspondence became busy when- 
ever an election was on hand, in order to set forth 
the claims of candidates and afford guidance to 
voters. In matters requiring a concert of action, 
extending over a state, it became the practice for 
the members of the legislature to caucus for the 
purpose of recommending candidates. Travel was 
slow and costly, the members were from all parts 
of the state and were already convened, so that 
the ease and convenience of the arrangement 
commended it. Men of political prominence, who 
were not members, could attend and participate in 
the proceedings if they cared to take the trouble 
to do so. A practical defect of the system, 
revealed at an early date, was that in a party 
caucus of members of the legislature, districts from 
which members of another party had been elected 
would not be represented. This could be remedied 
by the election from those districts of delegates to 
represent them in the caucus, thus giving it the 
character of a party convention. The New York 
legislative caucus, which nominated De Witt Clin- 
ton for governor in 18 17, was completed in this 
way. 



200 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

These methods came into existence, not by 
theoretic design, but as practical expedients. In 
just the same way, the nomination of candidates 
for President devolved upon the Congressional 
Caucus. Anything like express authority for such 
action was disavowed. In 1808 the Republican 
Congressional Caucus, in announcing its candi- 
dates, declared " that in making the foregoing rec- 
ommendation the members of this meeting have 
acted only in their individual characters as citi- 
zens ; they have been induced to adopt this meas- 
ure from the necessity of the case ; from a deep 
conviction of the importance of union to the Re- 
publicans throughout all parts of the United States 
in the present crisis of both our external and 
internal affairs ; and as being the most practicable 
mode of consulting and respecting the interests 
and wishes of all upon a subject so truly interest- 
ing to the whole people of the United States." 
Some such explanation was regularly appended to 
the announcements of the action of the Caucus so 
long as it undertook to make presidential nomina- 
tions. 

While this method might serve an established 
party already in possession of legislative control, 
it would not do for a party whose legislative repre- 
sentation was too weak for it to presume to speak 
for the whole. Consequently, the Federalists had 
to make use of other means of pooling their votes. 
Generally, the old-fashioned method of correspond- 



THE CONVENTION SYSTEM 201 

ence between party leaders, in the states where 
they still had some strength, was sufficient for 
their needs. In 1812, when the Clinton revolt in 
New York against the Virginia dynasty inspired 
the Federalists with some hope, they held a con- 
vention in New York, at which eleven states were 
represented, and endorsed the Clinton presidential 
ticket, already nominated by the legislative caucus 
at Albany. This convention, although more like a 
ratification mass-meeting than a nominating con- 
vention in the modern sense, led to an attempt 
to establish a regular convention system in New 
York. The Clinton bolt, although it controlled 
the Republican Caucus at Albany, did not carry 
with it the entire party organization in New 
York. Tammany Hall, with the support of 
Madison's administration, began a vigorous war 
on De Witt Clinton, and in 18 13 formally proposed 
that a state convention should be called for the 
purpose of nominating the governor. The move- 
ment failed, but the tendency of political oppo- 
sition to resort to the convention system became 
strongly marked. This was particularly the case 
with new political movements, whose power had 
yet to be developed in the composition of the 
legislature. Their interests naturally antagonized 
the legislative caucus, in which established political 
interests were intrenched. Hence the Anti-Masonic 
party, which sprang up in 1826, was driven to the 
expedient of holding conventions of its own. Its 



202 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

propaganda was actively carried on during the 
period in which the new conception of the presi- 
dential office was formed, and obedient to that im- 
pulse a national convention of the party was held 
in Philadelphia in 1831. This may be regarded as 
the first regularly constituted national party con- 
vention, congressional representation being taken 
as the rule of party representation. 

The popular dislike of party machinery was, 
however, deeply rooted. The Jackson movement 
had derived a great deal of strength from this 
sentiment, and in overthrowing the Congressional 
Caucus there was no intention to substitute for it 
the still more elaborate and cumbrous conven- 
tion system. The desire was to procure a con- 
stitutional amendment, enabling the people to vote 
directly for President. In the ordinary course of 
politics, however, the constitution is unamendable. 
A two-thirds majority of both Houses of Congress, 
and the sanction of three-fourths of the states, can 
be commanded only at rare and tremendous junct- 
ures. As the close of Jackson's first term ap- 
proached, the newly formed Democratic party 
found itself exposed to dangerous hazards of dis- 
sension from the lack of any method of securing 
party agreement as to the ticket to be supported 
by the presidential electors who might be chosen 
in the party interest. While it was settled that 
Jackson should be renominated, the vice-presidency 
was an open question, to decide which some mode 



THE CONVENTION SYSTEM 203 

of party action was necessary. There was some 
inclination to restore the Congressional Caucus. 
This was the preference of Van Buren and the 
Albany agency. Of course candidates apprehen- 
sive of the influences controlling Congress were 
opposed to this, and moreover public sentiment 
had been too deeply incensed against the Caucus 
to be won over. Meanwhile, the convention sys- 
tem had been adopted by the opposition. After 
the Anti-Masonic party had held its national con- 
vention, the National Republicans held theirs. 
William Wirt was the presidential candidate of 
the Anti-Masons. Henry Clay was the candidate 
of the National Republicans. The hope of the 
opposition to Jackson was that the electoral vote 
would be split up so as to throw the election into 
the House of Representatives, where the states 
would vote as equals. The necessity of concen- 
trating the Democratic vote became manifest, and 
the convention system appeared to be the only 
practicable method. The New Hampshire legis- 
lature led the way by issuing a call for a national 
convention, and Jackson gave his approval to the 
movement. Every state responded except Mis- 
souri. The system of national conventions was 
thus adopted by all parties. 

The position of the national convention, as the 
supreme authority in party organization, was not 
established without opposition. The Pennsylvania 
Democracy bolted the nomination of Van Buren 



204 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

for Vice-President in 1832, and the electoral votes 
of the state were cast for William Wilkins for that 
office. In 1832 and 1836 South Carolina cast her 
electoral vote for candidates of her own, who 
received no votes from any other state. In 1836 
the Democratic party was the only party which 
held a national convention. The plan of the 
opposition was to take the greatest possible ad- 
vantage of local elements of hostility to the 
national administration by running a number of 
tickets, and thus endeavor to throw the election 
into the House of Representatives. The Demo- 
cratic party organization in Virginia bolted the 
national convention nomination for Vice-President, 
and the electoral votes of the state were cast for 
an independent candidate. Van Buren, the con- 
vention candidate for President, was elected, but 
no one had a majority of votes for Vice-President. 
The election devolved on the Senate, which chose 
the convention nominee — Richard M. Johnson of 
Kentucky. In 1840 the Democratic-Republican 
national convention did not venture to nominate 
a candidate for Vice-President, but adopted a reso- 
lution, leaving "the decision to their Republican 
fellow-citizens in the several states, trusting that 
before the election shall take place their opinions 
shall become so concentrated as to secure the 
choice of a Vice-President by the electoral col- 
leges." The Democratic party did not obtain 
many electoral votes in that election. While all 



THE CONVENTION SYSTEM 205 

were given to Van Buren for President, they were 
divided among three candidates for Vice-President. 
Declarations of party principles naturally accom- 
panied the nomination of party candidates, and so 
the party platform had its origin. As in the case 
of the convention system the germ of the platform 
may be traced a long way back. In 1800 the 
Congressional Caucus of the Republican party 
adopted resolutions, setting forth the principles 
represented by Jefferson's candidacy. In 1812 the 
New York legislative caucus, which nominated 
Clinton to the presidency, set forth the grounds of 
opposition to Madison in a series of resolutions. 
During the Jackson movement the adoption of 
resolutions at meetings and conventions became a 
regular practice. When national party conven- 
tions regularly assumed the function of selecting 
candidates, they could not well avoid making 
statements of party principles. Public opinion 
demanded such explanations, and the politicians 
had to comply. In 1840, the first formal national 
platform of the Democratic party was adopted. • 
The Whigs, a party of political odds and ends, ) 
did not formally present a platform either in 1840 ( 
or in 1848. The prepossessions in favor of parlia- 
mentary control which clung to the Whig party 
made the laying down of platforms in connection 
with presidential nominations a disagreeable duty. 
Its real feeling on the subject was probably that 
which it declared when, reduced to a mere rump 



206 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

under the name of the Constitutional Union Party, 
it met at Baltimore in i860 and nominated Bell 
and Everett. It then adopted resolutions setting 
forth that "experience has demonstrated that plat- 
forms adopted by the partisan conventions of the 
country have had the effect to mislead and deceive 
the people, and at the same time widen the politi- 
cal divisions of the country by the creation and 
encouragement of geographical and sectional par- 
tisan parties." 

That party never held another convention, and 
J never since then has any party failed to submit to 
the people some statement of its purpose. 

But while the adoption of a platform is now an 
accepted party obligation, the duty is not dis- 
charged with complete sincerity. Platform utter- 
ances have become so vague and ambiguous that 
the tendency of public sentiment is to attach much 
less importance to them than to the declarations 
of the presidential candidates. Mr. Blaine, in a 
review article, thus described the change which 
has taken place : — 

" The resolutions of a convention have come to 
signify little in determining the position of President 
or party. Formerly the platform was of first impor- 
tance. Diligent attention was given, not only to 
every position advanced, but to the phrase in which 
it was expressed. The presidential candidate was 
held closely to the text, and he made no excur- 
sions beyond it. Now, the position of the candi- 



THE CONVENTION SYSTEM 20y 

date, as defined by himself, is of far more weight 
with the voters, and the letter of acceptance has 
come to be the legitimate creed of the party." 

The establishment of national control over party 
organization, against the obstructions raised by 
popular prejudice and state pride, could not have 
been effected without the influence of the federal I 
patronage. The resistance to the system in the \ 
Democratic party was strong and stubborn, and / 
some marks of it still appear in convention pro- 
cedure. The rule requiring a two-thirds majority »■' 
to nominate, which is peculiar to the Democratic 
party, was a precaution taken by state party or- 
ganizations against submergence of their interests. 
The subsequent adoption of the unit rule, by which 
a majority of each delegation was allowed to cast 
its full vote, recognized a practice begun in the Van 
Buren interest, the inequitable character of which 
was mitigated by making it uniform. 1 It required 
the full pressure of Jackson's authority to make 
the party organizations in a number of states sub- 
mit to the convention system at all. The great 
edifice of national party organization has the presi- V 
dential patronage for its corner-stone. 

1 These famous rules are usually ascribed to the influence of 
state sovereignty ideas, but the facts of the case do not sustain 
this theory. Calhoun, who was the great champion of state sover- 
eignty, always contended that the people should elect convention 
delegates by districts. He also contended that if delegations voted 
as states, they should have an equal vote, as in an election of the 
President by the House of Representatives. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION 

An effect of the convention system, which was 
at once noted, was the complete effacement of the 
constitutional design for the election of President. 
Senator Benton, a leader of the Jackson movement 
which was the great agent of change, was startled 
by the consequences of the new system. He said, 
" The election of the President and the Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States has passed, — not only 
from the college of electors to which the constitu- 
tion confided it, and from the people to which the 
practice under the constitution gave it, and from 
the House of Representatives which the constitu- 
tion provided as ultimate arbiter, — but has gone to 
an anomalous, irresponsible body, unknown to law 
or constitution, unknown to the early ages of our 
government. . . ." 1 Benton's remedy was "the ap- 
plication of the democratic principle — the people 
to vote direct for President and Vice-President." 
This was the original demand of the Jackson party.. 
Benton drew a fancy picture of American citizens 
going to the polls, each declaring who, in his indi- 
vidual opinion, was the fittest man for President. 

1 Thirty Years' View, Vol. I., p. 49. 
208 



TRANSFORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION 209 

He likened it to "the sublime spectacle" that was 
seen in the city states of antiquity, "when the 
Roman citizen advanced to the polls and pro- 
claimed: 'I vote for Cato to be Consul'; the 
Athenian, ' I vote for Aristides to be Archon ' ; 
the Theban, ' I vote for Pelopidas to be Bceotrach ' ; 
the Lacedaemonian, ' I vote for Leonidas to be first 
of the Ephori. ' " That there would be any diffi- 
culty in exercising a real choice does not seem to 
have occurred to Benton, but the point was clearly 
discerned by Calhoun's penetrating intellect. He 
argued that the natural incompetency of the peo- 
ple to judge in such a case would inevitably trans- 
fer the real selection to a few managers. Like 
Benton, he held that "the complex and refined 
machinery provided by the constitution for the 
election of the President and Vice-President is vir- 
tually superseded " ; and that "the nomination of 
the successful party, by irresponsible individuals, 
makes, in reality, the choice." x But so far from 
holding popular election to be the cure, he found 
it to be the cause of the evil, so that the extension 
of the principle would only aggravate the malady. 
In his own state of South Carolina he successfully 
opposed the choice of presidential electors by 
popular election, on the ground that " so far from 
giving power to the people it would be the most 
effectual way that could be devised of divesting 
them of it and transferring it to party managers 

1 Calhoun's Works, Vol. I., p. 224. 
P 



210 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

and cliques." In his " Disquisition of Government " 
he sets forth with impregnable logic the sequence 
of cause and effect. He points out that parties 
will rule because associated effort is more power- 
ful than individual action. 

"The conflict between the two parties in the 
government of the numerical majority, tends neces- 
sarily to settle down into a struggle for the honors 
and emoluments of the government ; and each, in 
order to obtain an object so ardently desired, will, 
in the process of the struggle, resort to whatever 
measure may seem best calculated to effect this 
purpose. The adoption by the one, of any meas- 
ure, however objectionable, which might give it an 
advantage, would compel the other to follow its 
example. In such a case, it would be indispensa- 
ble to success, to avoid division and keep united ; 
— and hence, from a necessity inherent in the 
nature of such governments, each party must be 
alternately forced, in order to insure victory, to 
resort to measures to concentrate the control over 
its movements in fewer and fewer hands, as the 
struggle became more and more violent. This in 
process of time must lead to party organization 
and party caucuses and discipline ; and these to 
the conversion of the honors and emoluments of 
the government into means of rewarding partisan 
services, in order to secure the fidelity and increase 
the zeal of the members of the party." 1 

1 Calhoun's Works, Vol. I., pp. 40, 4* 



TRANSFORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION 211 

Calhoun's writings exhibit a mental attitude in 
which the nullification doctrine and attachment 
to the Union meet in harmony. Taking for his 
starting-point the fact that the intention of the 
constitution was to establish, not a government by 
popular majority, but one of checks and balances, 
he showed how the constitutional checks and 
balances had been destroyed by party spirit. 
While the form of the constitution had remained, 
its restraint had been avoided by transferring the 
selection of Presidents and the initiative of admin- 
istration to an extra-constitutional body, free from 
all restriction, save such as public opinion might 
impose. Members of Congress and office-holders 
are constitutionally disqualified from serving as 
electors, but nevertheless they swarm in national 
conventions and in practice act as electors. Cal- 
houn's point was that, since the original checks 
had been overthrown, new ones were necessary if 
the constitution was to be preserved. The fittest 
check was one which he held to be inherent in the 
nature of the union — ■ the exercise of state sover- 
eignty. 

" The practical effect is to give to each inter- 
est or portion of the community a negative on the 
others. It is this mutual negative among its 
various conflicting interests, which invests each 
with the power of protecting itself ; and places 
the rights and safety of each, where only they can 
be securely placed, under its own guardianship. 



212 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

Without this there can be no systematic, peaceful, 
or effective resistance to the natural tendency of 
each to come into conflict with the others ; and 
without this there can be no constitution. It is 
this negative power — the power of preventing or 
arresting the action of the government — be it 
called by what term it may — veto, interposition, 
nullification, check, or balance of power — which 
in fact forms the constitution." 2 

It is easy to see how this line of reasoning 
eventually led to Calhoun's proposal of a dual ex- 
ecutive, the final expedient suggested by his pa- 
triotism as a means of reconciling to his ideas of 
constitutional liberty the Union which he loved. 
The secession movement naturally emerged from 
this state of thought. It was as constitutional in 
its temper as the Revolution of 1776. There is 
no more pathetic reading in all political literature 
than Calhoun's writings on government. They 
are a noble monument over the grave of the Whig 
theory of government, slain in its constitutional 
intrenchments by victorious Democracy. 

The profound change which Jackson's adminis- 
tration effected in the character of the govern- 
ment, makes it a landmark of the divergence 
between the English and American constitutional 
systems. To subject the administration of public 
affairs to the superintendence of public opinion, 
has been the tendency of constitutional develop- 

1 Calhoun's Works, Vol. I., p. 35. 



TRANSFORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION 213 

merit in both countries. In England, the dem- 
ocratic movement made executive prerogative 
subservient to the national will, through the 
agency of Parliament ; in America, it seized pre- 
rogative by the immediate act of the people. 
There was no conscious selection of means. 
The choice was determined by necessity. There 
are instances of popular appeals to George III to 
exercise the royal veto upon acts of Parliament. 
The nature of the tenure of royal authority, how- 
ever, puts it out of the reach of direct popular con- 
trol. The people have no choice who shall be 
king. In England, the only organ of government 
on which democratic forces could act directly was 
Parliament. When George III was compelled 
by circumstances to rest his administration upon 
the popularity of the younger Pitt, the form which 
democratic development would take was settled. 
Thenceforth the basis of governmental authority 
was not the king's will, but public opinion, as 
reflected in the composition of Parliament and 
embodied in its leadership. To make the com- 
position of Parliament a fair expression of public 
opinion was the object sought by the English 
reform movement which was contemporaneous 
with the democratic uprising in America. The 
parliamentary reform bill, which marks the estab- 
lishment of popular control in England, was passed 
in 1832, during Jackson's first administration. 
In this country democratic progress found in 



214 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

the President its most convenient instrument. 
Public opinion suppressed the constitutional dis- 
cretion of the electoral college, and made it a reg- 
ister of the result of the popular vote as taken by- 
states. The President became the elect of the 
people, the organ of the will of the nation. Hence 
the power of the presidential office exhibits an 
enormous growth, while royal prerogative has 
withered. The right to choose the ministers of 
the crown has long since been resigned by Eng- 
lish royalty. The President selects the members 
of his cabinet to suit himself. The constitutional 
participation of the Senate has become a mere 
matter of form. The veto power of the crown is 
extinct. Writing in 1828, Macaulay described it 
as "a prerogative which has not been exercised 
for a hundred and thirty years, which probably 
will never be exercised again, and which can 
scarcely in any conceivable case be exercised for 
a salutary purpose." That is just the time when 
the veto power of the President began to dis- 
play an exuberant vitality. English royalty has 
dwindled away into a ceremonial function. The 
power of the presidential office has increased and 
is increasing. 

In England the formation of the parliamentary 
type of government was completed when it be- 
came a settled principle that party control of the 
House of Commons carried with it the custody of 
crown authority. The presidential type of gov- 



TRANSFORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION 21$ 

ernment which democratic progress is shaping in 
America is still imperfect. While the presiden- 
tial office has been transformed into a representa- 
tive institution, it lacks proper organs for the 
exercise of that function. The nomination of a 
presidential candidate is accompanied by a decla- 
ration of party principles which he is pledged to 
enforce in the conduct of the administration ; but 
no constitutional means are provided whereby he 
may carry out his pledges, and it is due solely to 
the extra-constitutional means supplied by party 
organization that the presidential office is able to 
perform the function imposed upon it of executing 
the will of the nation. Party organization acts as 
a connective tissue, enfolding the separate organs 
of government, and tending to establish a unity 
of control which shall adapt the government to the 
uses of popular sovereignty. The adaptation is 
still so incomplete that the administrative func- 
tion is imperfectly carried on and the body-politic 
surfers acutely from its irregularity. 

American politics are in a transition state. 
Throes of change rack the state with pain in every 
limb and evoke continual groans. A cry for relief 
is the burden of public utterance. A ready ear is 
given to quackery, and many political nostrums 
are recommended with pathetic credulity by large 
bodies of respectable people. Fortunately for the 
safety of the state and the development of the 
constitution, the character and circumstances of 



2l6 POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT 

the mass of the people are such that efforts to 
physic American politics are futile. The agencies 
which have carried on the process of change will 
continue to do so, in spite of all outcry and remon- 
strance, until the democratic type of government 
is perfected. 



PART III 

THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 



CHAPTER XVIII 

INSTRUMENTS OF RULE 

The preceding chapters sketch the development 
of American politics down to our own times. The 
stage of growth, whose beginning is marked by 
the Jacksonian era, still continues, and the actual 
constitution of the government, in its typical char- 
acteristics, still remains as it was then moulded. 
The conclusions which have been reached may be 
summarized as follows : — 

The government began as a magisterial control, 
the product of a conservative reaction against im- 
pending anarchy. This control was founded accord- 
ing to the principles of the English constitution, 
as then understood, by distributing the authority 
and balancing the powers of government so as to 
give representation to different social orders and 
interests, and enable each to protect itself. The 
organs of government were constituted upon the 
English pattern, monarchical prerogative being 

217 



2l8 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

represented by the presidential office, the House 
of Lords by the Senate, and the House of Com- 
mons by the House of Representatives. In fram- 
ing the government care was taken to exclude what 
were regarded as corruptions impairing the consti- 
tutional model, — in particular, the formation of a 
cabinet of ministers from among the members of 
the legislature, — and extra precautions were taken 
to confine the democratical element in the consti- 
tution by restricting the powers of the House of 
Representatives to limits narrower than those of 
the House of Commons. 

The government was put up and set going by a 
concert of action among leading men in the various 
states, who possessed an aristocratic ascendency 
strong enough, when dexterously and energetically 
exercised, to impose their determinations upon the 
mass of the people. These national politicians 
comprised two groups formed during the Revolu- 
tionary struggle : the one, from the associations 
of the Continental Congress ; the other, from ex- 
perience of administrative necessities ; the one, 
wholly civilian ; the other, largely military ; the 
one, intent upon parliamentary checks upon au- 
thority ; the other, intent upon executive efficiency. 
As soon as the government was fairly established, 
and the stress of circumstances which brought 
them together was relaxed, these groups with 
their adherents drew apart and formed rival 
parties, each seeking to control the administration. 



INSTRUMENTS OF RULE 219 

Party competition for popular favor and support 
stimulated democratic tendencies, at the same time 
supplying a leadership which moderated their force 
and confined them to constitutional methods. As 
the suffrage was extended and political power was 
diffused among the masses, the supremacy of the 
classes which had possession of the government 
was undermined. Their control of the electoral 
college — which, although constituted as a delib- 
erative body, had always acted in a ministerial 
capacity — became precarious, and in the election 
of Jackson was overthrown. The electoral college 
was finally divested of any semblance of its origi- 
nal constitutional discretion and became distinctly 
a party agency. The presidential office was thus 
placed within reach for use as an instrument of 
popular control over the administration of public 
affairs. The office experienced a democratic trans- 
formation, making it a representative institution 
— the organ of the will of the nation. All its 
powers were invigorated. 

This profound change in the nature of the con- 
stitution was accomplished without any change in 
its formal provisions, and the separation of the 
legislative and executive branches of administra- 
tion, so carefully ordained by the framers of the 
constitution, remained intact ; while the coordi- 
nating influences upon which they had relied were 
extinguished. The establishment of a new joint 
control became the instinctive object of party 



220 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

effort. To supply the place of the class interests 
and social connections which originally provided 
the necessary unity of control, the convention 
system was developed, and gradually its jurisdic- 
tion was confirmed until local, state, and national 
politics were bound together in national party or- 
ganization and all their activities were subordi- 
nated to national interests. The magnitude and 
extent of the functions assumed have been sus- 
tained by an appropriate elaboration of structure, 
giving to party organization in America a massive- 
ness and a complexity unknown in governments 
whose constitution leaves to party only its ordi- 
nary office of propagating opinion and inciting the 
political activity of citizenship. In England party 
elicits the expression of the will of the nation ; in 
this country it must also provide for its execution, 
so that it is virtually a part of the apparatus of gov- 
ernment itself, connecting the executive and legis- 
lative departments, and occupying the place which 
in the parliamentary type of government is filled 
by the ministry. An account of the organs of 
government would therefore be incomplete unless, 
to the House of Representatives, the Senate, and 
the Presidency, there is added Party Organization. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE CONGRESS 

Like the Continental Congress which preceded 
it, the Congress of the United States is essentially 
a diplomatic body — a convention of the envoys of 
locality. This fact determines its essential char- 
acter, and refers one to the ordinary methods of a 
diplomatic congress rather than to those of a par- 
liament for an explanation of its usages. The 
essential characteristic of a genuine parliament 
is that it embodies national control. The govern- 
ment appears before it, like the general manager 
of a company meeting the board of directors. 
The measures he submits for their consideration 
have been prepared in advance. He explains 
them, replies to criticism, and when sufficient op- 
portunity has been allowed for discussion, he de- 
mands the decision of the board. It is part of 
his ordinary duties to be prepared to give informa- 
tion as to the condition of the company's affairs, 
and at all times he must be able to sustain the 
responsibilities of his trusteeship. Under such 
circumstances discussion cannot but be direct and 
practical. When people are talking business, they 
are intolerant of futile palaver. Hence parliamen- 



222 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

tary bodies are notoriously rude to bores. Among 
the traditions of the House of Commons is the 
story of a member, caught pulling out a written 
speech in the course of an exciting debate, who 
was handled in a manner that drove him out of the 
House and extinguished his parliamentary ambi- 
tion. 1 It is a well-known incident of Disraeli's 
career that the first time he attempted to make a 
speech, his affected manner provoked such a tumult 
of derision that he could not make himself heard, 
and he sat down in disgust. 

Nothing of this kind could happen in Congress, 
for the underlying principle of its procedure is 
that its members, like the delegates to a diplomatic 
congress, meet as peers, each one having in theory 
all the rights and privileges that any one has. 2 
In the Senate this principle is in no way circum- 
scribed. Nothing can be done so long as any one 
desires to talk and is able to do so. Even in the 
House, where under compulsion of necessity limi- 
tations have been put upon debate, a member 
cannot be so dull and incapable but what he may 
not at least have his opportunity at an evening set 

1 Trevelyan's Early Years of Fox, p. 169. 

2 January 18, 1814, Representative King of Massachusetts con- 
tended that the rules should be amended so as to prohibit the House 
from refusing to consider any resolutions offered by a representa- 
tive. In his speech he said, " I never can for a moment concede 
that it depends upon the will and pleasure of this or any other ma- 
jority of this House, whether the people of the United States, by 
their representatives, shall, or shall not, be heard upon this floor." 



THE CONGRESS 223 

apart for speechmaking only ; or, if he like it bet- 
ter, be permitted to print a speech in the Record 
as having been delivered, with the privilege of 
free use of the mails to send it to his constitu- 
ents. 

The truth is that in Congress the role of orators 
is the subordinate one of advocating and support- 
ing policies imposed by party, and they may figure 
brilliantly in this capacity without thereby obtain- 
ing much authority. A man may have genuine, 
forensic ability, which attracts the attention of 
the House and of the country, and yet his politi- 
cal career may be suddenly ended by the displeas- 
ure of party managers whom he has somehow of- 
fended or whose plans it suits to bring some one 
else forward. On the other hand, men who would 
be utterly lost in a parliamentary debate, and would 
simply make a show of themselves if they should 
make an attempt at oratory, may exercise great 
influence in Congress by their prominence in party 
councils. 1 The ablest orators cannot compare with 
them in real power, for they represent an authority 
superior to Congress — the authority of party or- 
ganization. 2 

1 The career of Senator J. Donald Cameron is a case in point. 
He was indisputably an influential member of Congress, although 
his incapacity as an orator was a perpetual subject of newspaper 
ridicule. 

2 In the Republican caucus at Harrisburg, which nominated Mr. 
Cameron for reelection to the Senate, Mr. Toweler of Forest County 
said : " Ingalls and Evarts are orators, and I would like to know 



/ 



224 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

Business is shaped and arranged for considera- 
tion, as in a diplomatic gathering, by the action of 
the Congress itself. It supplies itself with the nec- 
essary organs by subdivision into as many commit- 
tees as it sees fit. The Pan-American Conference 
which met at Washington 1 890-1 891 exhibited in 
its proceedings the ground plan of the methods by 
which Congress does its work. That conference 
had so many subjects to consider that it appointed 
sixteen standing committees. Their reports to the 
conference presented those subjects in shape for 
action. Congress works in precisely the same way. 
It breaks itself up into numerous segments, each a 
little congress in its way, with both the dominant 
party and the opposition represented in its mem- 
bership. The formative stage of legislation is 
carried on in diplomatic privacy, while the public 
feeds on gossip about what is going on behind the 
closed doors. Hidden influences are at work de- 
termining results. The conduct of business is a 
negotiation between diverse interests, and it is 
only after the conclusions reached are reported that 
Congress gets a chance to act. And yet the com- 
mittees assume no responsibility, for the theory 
is that they are simply agents of Congress, ap- 
pointed for its convenience. Jefferson's " Manual 
of Parliamentary Practice," which forms a part of 

what they ever got or ever did, except blow off their mouths. 
Pennsylvania gets everything she wants through her senators." 
Philadelphia Inquirer, January 8, 1891. 



THE CONGRESS 225 

the rules of the House, holds that the proceedings 
of a committee are not to be published, as they 
are of no force until confirmed by the House. 

Congress originally pursued parliamentary meth- 
ods, and did not begin to develop its peculiar 
characteristics until it had rejected the offices 
of the chiefs of administration on which it had 
originally depended, and threw itself upon its 
own resources. The rules of order adopted by 
the House when it first organized did not provide 
for the appointment of any standing committees, 
although before the first session was over the 
rules were amended so as to provide for a standing 
Committee on Elections. The recommendations of 
the President and reports of heads of departments 
supplied the subjects of legislation, which were 
considered in Committee of the Whole. The 
sense of the House being thus ascertained, a select 
committee would be appointed to prepare the bill. 1 
There was close contact between Congress and 
the heads of administration. Until the govern- 
ment was settled in Washington, all its branches 
were so bunched together in their quarters that 
communication was easy, and so long as Congress 

1 An entry of January 10, 1794, says: "The House went into 
Committee of the Whole on the statements and estimates of appro- 
priations for the current year. Resolved, on certain appropriations, 
and moved that a committee should be appointed to prepare and 
bring in a bill for that purpose." Annals of Congress, 1793-1 795, 
p. 169. 

Q 



226 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

was willing, the executive departments were almost 
as closely in touch with legislation as they would 
have been if the Cabinet officers had been actually 
present on the floor of the House. Indeed, it was 
not unusual for them to come personally into 
Congress with the business they had to pro- 
pose. 1 

The Third Congress, which adopted the plan of 
internal taxation, the preparation of which was 
Hamilton's last important official act before leav- 
ing the Cabinet, had only two standing committees, 
— Elections and Claims. The Fourth Congress, 
which met December, 1795, added two more, — 
Commerce and Manufactures, and Revisal and 
Unfinished Business. On December 16, 1796, the 
party breach between the House and the adminis- 
tration being then complete, it was resolved on 
motion of Mr. Gallatin that a standing Committee 
of Ways and Means should be appointed to watch 
over the national finances. Thereafter, motions to 
increase the number of standing committees were 
made at every session. Under the Virginia 
dynasty, when the House was the seat of admin- 
istration, the list of standing committees was 
extended so as to cover by name every executive 
department and all the business of the adminis- 
tration — such as Indian Affairs, Foreign Affairs, 



1 Senate Document, 837 ; Forty-sixth Congress, third session, 
gives a number of instances. See Appendix. 



THE CONGRESS 227 

Military Affairs, Naval Affairs, etc. This com- 
pleted the committee system, but it still continued 
to expand, and from time to time the list of com- 
mittees has been extended. 

The Senate was slow to follow the example of 
the House. In its executive functions it acted as 
a council of state considering business submitted 
by the President. Its legislative functions were 
exercised upon business already put in shape for 
action by the House. The Senate, being a small, 
permanent body, always able to consult its own 
wishes, could get along conveniently by the 
appointment of select committees as occasion 
arose. For the same reason, it did not experi- 
ence the embarrassment, in choosing its own 
committees, which at an early date caused the 
House to turn that business over to the Speaker. 1 
The Senate has always adhered to the practice of 
choosing its own committees. It was not until 
the second session of the Fourteenth Congress, in 
1816, that it established standing committees, but 
the process once started moved on rapidly. In 
the Fifty-fifth Congress the House had fifty-four 

1 The rules of the House at first provided that the Speaker 
should appoint all committees unless over three in number of mem- 
bers, when they should be balloted for by the House. The rules 
adopted at the first session of the Third Congress, November, 1794, 
provided that the Speaker should appoint all committees unless 
otherwise specially directed by the House. The House found it so 
troublesome to undertake this duty that appointment by the Speaker 
became the settled practice. 



228 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

standing committees ; the Senate had forty-nine 
standing committees and ten select ; and there 
were three joint committees. 

All this vast development of organization is due 
to the separation which took place between execu- 
tive management and legislative control. The 
English Parliament, with much more authority to 
exercise, continues to do its work with an organiza- 
tion as simple as sufficed Congress a hundred years 
ago. The House of Commons has only four stand- 
ing committees, and but two of these consider bills. 1 
The House of Commons still resolves itself into 
Committee on Supply to consider appropriations, 
or into Committee on Ways and Means to consider 
revenue measures, just as the House of Represent- 
atives did at first. In other words, the directors, 
having the management of the concern before 
them all the time, subject to their supervision and 
control, do not need to keep up a staff of standing 
committees to gather information and prepare busi- 
ness for their consideration. Neither do they have 
to bother about getting their resolves into legal 
shape, and so moil over questions of phraseology, 
as Congress is continually doing. A salaried staff 
of legal experts are there to serve them in this 

1 For the consideration of private bills there is a system of com- 
mittees, but these are really courts at whose bar eminent counsel 
practice. For an interesting account of how Parliament does its 
work see the chapter under that title in Porritt's The Englishman 
at Home. 



THE CONGRESS 229 

respect, giving exact and uniform expression to the 
legislative intent. 

On the contrary, it is in just such work as this 
that Congress consumes its powers, so that its 
proper functions of deliberation and criticism are 
impoverished just as Fisher Ames said they would 
be. 1 The committees are very industrious, and at 
every session they turn out an enormous amount 
of business. That is the main occupation of Con- 
gress. The popular characterization of it as " the 
legislative mill " hits it off exactly. Congress does 
the best it can do in the circumstances, for it is 
really the most diligent legislative body in the 
world, but the harder it works the more it flounders 
in the mass of legislation thrust upon it. Only 
a small proportion of the bills on the calendar can 
ever be reached. Contending interests struggle 
for attention and pull this way and that. An 
interest that gets on top in the scramble plunges 
violently towards its goal, anxious above all things 
to attain its object while the opportunity serves. 
Of course there is a great deal of haphazard work. 
Imagine the plight of a large board of directors, 
who, instead of dealing directly with the general 
officers of the company, have to deal with numer- 
ous busy committees of their own, possessed by all 
sorts of ideas, and abounding with schemes con- 
ceived in behalf of all sorts of interests ! What 
opportunity would there be for the establishment 

1 See Chap. VI., p. %%. 



23O THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

of a steady and consistent policy and for the exer- 
cise of judgment and deliberation in the dispatch 
of business ? 

The Senate is less the victim of circumstances 
in this respect than the House, for it is so small 
a body and has such settled habits that it is easy 
for it to understand itself and know what it wants, 
so that it can act promptly and easily whenever 
it so desires. 1 Much of its business is matured 
before reaching it. The revenue and appropriation 
bills, which take up the greater part of the time 
of every Congress, are put in shape by the House, 
and the Senate is familiar with their provisions 
before it has to pass upon them. 

In the House, however, where all have so much 
to do and are so eager to do it, the push of legis- 
lation is so violent that special precautions have 
to be taken for the orderly guidance of business. 
A complicated system of rules has grown up, a 
curious feature of which is the manoeuvring by 
which business of special importance may be carried 
around the blockade of measures on the regular 
calendar. Certain committees have leave to report 
at any time. Bills for raising revenue, general 
appropriations, and bills for the improvement of 
rivers and harbors always have precedence over 
other bills on the calendar. There are times when 
the rules may be suspended altogether, to permit 

1 On January 23, 1897, tne Senate passed 104 bills in ninety- 
five minutes. They were bills granting pensions. 



THE CONGRESS 23 1 

any desired measure to be taken up and put upon 
its passage, but it takes a two-thirds vote to do 
this, and in such a case debate is limited to forty 
minutes. The regular channels of legislation are 
always so hopelessly clogged that the last six days 
of the session are devoted to legislation under 
suspension of the rules, and then a legislative 
crevasse takes place. 1 

Instead of securing deliberation, the practical 
effect of the committee system, with its numerous 
entanglements, is to incline Congress towards 
hasty and violent methods of despatching business. 
It is difficult to know what is being done in the 
hurly-burly. The mass of members record their 
votes for measures about which they know little 
or nothing, counting in return on a similar indul- 
gence towards the measures in which they are 
interested. 2 The inevitable consequence is that 
legislation is frequently crude, obscure, and un- 
certain. The courts are kept busy construing and 

1 Of the 433 pages of general legislation enacted at the last 
session of the Fifty-first Congress, 284 pages are covered by the 
enactments of the last day. 

2 Here is a typical instance culled from the Congressional 
Record : — 

Mr. Broderick. — Do you see any objection to the bill with that 
feature in it ? 

Mr. Brosius. — I do not care anything about the bill. I think 
I will support the bill because you say it is all right ; but I have 
given it no attention at all. I only rose to reply to some statements 
of my friend from Ohio. . . . Congressional Record, February 23, 
1897, P- 2254. 



232 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

interpreting the laws. The litigation that ensues 
after every tariff act, before its exact meaning is 
settled, involves millions of dollars, and affects 
business interests to an incalculable extent. 

Where, in this struggle of interests, this jostle of 
legislation, does the government come in ? Writ- 
ing home about the manner in which he negotiated 
the reciprocity treaty of 1854, Lord Elgin said: 
"There was no government to deal with. ... It 
was all a matter of canvassing this member of 
Congress or the other." 1 By "government" Lord 
Elgin meant a responsible management, defining 
national policy and shaping legislative proposals. 
Foi such a government, our present constitutional 
system makes no provision. Government is sup- 
posed to be a by-product of the normal activities 
of Congress. The theory is that Congress re- 
flects with tolerable fairness, subject to correc- 
tion when it fails to do so, the interests, opinions, 
and desires of the people. This theory blinks 
such an awkward circumstance as the oligarchic 
constitution of the Senate, and it quite ignores 
the fact that public opinion is for the most part 
a static force, while force in action is the only 
kind which Congress notices. It may seem like 
a sarcasm to say that Congress represents every 

1 Letters and Journals of Lord Elgin, p. 121. Laurence Oli- 
phant, who was Lord Elgin's secretary on this diplomatic mission, 
gives a very racy account of this transaction in his Episodes of 
a Life of Adventure, pp. 43, 44. 



THE CONGRESS 2 33 

interest except the public interest, 1 but just that 
is implied by the attitude which Congress takes 
with regard to public demands. It disclaims the 
position of a trustee, and seeks to confine its re- 
sponsibility to the faithful discharge of ministerial 
functions. It insists that, before anything can be 
done, the public shall reach definite conclusions 
and create specific political interests such as Con- 
gress is able to take cognizance of. That is what 
Speaker Reed told the delegation which waited 
on him, March 26, 1897, to urge financial legis- 
lation. The Associated Press despatches report 
him as saying : " Congress rarely moves faster 
than the people in matters of legislation, and when 
public sentiment became crystallized in favor of 
any particular form of financial legislation, Con- 
gress would be apt to respond with little delay. 
If the people demanded changes in the banking 
system, and brought pressure to bear upon Con- 
gress, they would secure the changes." 

In thus avoiding the responsibility of determin- 
ing legislative policy, Congress really abandons 
itself to the control of special interests but re- 

1 In the course of a debate in the Senate, Mr. Allen remarked : 
" In the imposition of tariff taxes the interests of all persons con- 
cerned must be considered. The senator from Kentucky (Mr. 
Lindsay) says to me, ' except the consumers.' The consumers 
seem largely to get the worst of it in the framing of a tariff bill. 
That is true largely, possibly, because they have nobody here look- 
ing after their interests particularly. They are not organized." 
Congressional Record, June 29, 1897. 



234 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

motely concerned about the general welfare. The 
mass of the people simply desire good government, 
and leave questions of ways and means to the 
administration. The particular interests which 
bombard Congress may misrepresent the real state 
of public opinion altogether. In a general way 
the politicians are aware of this, and endeavor to 
take the fact into account, but sometimes they 
make woful miscalculations, and the result is a 
great revulsion of popular sentiment, producing 
what is called "a tidal wave" or a "landslide." 

Whatever may be the theory, however, a practi- 
cal consideration which is quite well understood 
is that the make-up of the committees moulds the 
character of legislation. In the House of Com- 
mons the Speaker is simply a moderator. His 
party connection is a matter of no importance. 
But in the House of Representatives everything 
turns upon the election of the Speaker, for his 
action in constituting the committees determines 
the character of legislation. 1 Thus the effect of 

1 A striking illustration of this is furnished by the tariff policy of 
the Democratic party. When Mr. Randall, the head of the pro- 
tectionist wing of the Democratic party, was elected Speaker, he 
thwarted the plans of the tariff reformers by refusing to reappoint 
Mr. Morrison to the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Commit- 
tee. The make-up of this committee was the issue in the election 
of the Speaker at the opening of the Forty-eighth Congress, when 
Randall was defeated by Carlisle. Mr. Randall was then appointed 
chairman of the Committee on Appropriations. His influence was 
still so great that at the first session of the Forty-ninth Congress he 



THE CONGRESS 235 

the rules is really to narrow the control of busi- 
ness to a group of party leaders, to whose exercise 
of authority no direct and open responsibility is 
attached. 

The final stage of legislation exhibits a still 
more remarkable development of irresponsible 
control. The rules of the House provide that 
"all motions or propositions involving a tax or 
charge upon the people ; all proceedings touching 
appropriations of money, . . . shall be first consid- 
ered in a Committee of the Whole." But reports 
from conference committees are excepted from the 
operation of this rule. A committee of conference 
may introduce matter into a bill which has not 
been considered in either House, or it may change 
items concerning which there has been no dis- 
agreement between the two Houses. This is not 
merely theoretically possible, but has often been 
done. 1 The report of a conference committee 

was able, with. Republican assistance, to defeat the tariff bill re- 
ported from the Ways and Means Committee. The rules of the 
House were changed at the next Congress, so that much of the 
work of the Appropriations Committee was distributed among other 
committees. Having thus broken Mr. Randall's influence, the 
Democratic party leaders were at last able to get their tariff bill 
through the House. 

1 In one case, when the House had fixed a duty of $20 on bar 
iron, and the Senate had made the rate $20.16, the conference com- 
mittee fixed the rate at $22.40. Once, when both Senate and 
House had fixed the duty on iron ore at 50 cents a ton, the con- 
ference committee made the rate 75 cents. Taussig's Tariff His- 
tory, p. 233. New items, which have not been discussed in either 



236 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

may not be amended or divided or laid on the 
table, as other reports, but must be adopted or 
rejected in its entirety. Under such duress, in 
order to secure the passage of important bills, 
Congress has time and again passed measures 
which but few wanted and to which the great 
majority were opposed. 

Thus the system of committee supervision over 
details of legislation accomplishes its own suicide. 
In its practical operation it delivers the House, 
bound and helpless, into the hands of the Senate. 
Senators take care to load bills with matter for 
use in making mock concessions, while they extort 
from the House everything they really want. This 
arbitrary control of senators over legislation was 
the issue really involved in the conflict between 
the two Houses over the tariff bill of 1894. Fear, 
lest the bill might be defeated altogether, caused 
the House suddenly to pass the bill just as it came 
back from the Senate. This unprecedented action 
made a chance exposure of the way in which leg- 
islation is really shaped. Some senators found 
themselves badly caught at their own tricks, pro- 
visions which they had introduced with a jockey- 
House, are sometimes introduced. A notorious case was the 
clause in the tariff bill of 1897, imposing an additional duty of 
10 per cent on all goods brought into this country from Canada, 
which was inserted in the bill by the Senate conferees for a pur- 
pose which was not disclosed until after the passage of the bill, 
and of which a number of the conferees themselves, according to 
their statements, were quite ignorant. 



THE CONGRESS 237 

ing purpose being converted into law. Senator 
Sherman complained that "there are many cases 
in the bill where the enactment was not intended 
by the Senate. For instance, innumerable amend- 
ments were put on by senators on both sides of 
the chamber ... to give the Committee of Con- 
ference a chance to think of the matter, and they 
are all adopted, whatever may be their language or 
the incongruity with other parts of the bill." 1 

Altogether, the legislative methods of Congress 
afford a striking verification of Madison's observa- 
tion that "in all legislative assemblies the greater 
the number composing them, the fewer will be the 
men who in fact direct the proceedings." 2 This 
holds true alike of a parliament or of a congress, 
the difference being that in a parliament the men 
who direct the proceedings assume a definite re- 
sponsibility under public scrutiny, whereas in Con- 
gress they are behind the scenes, and it is only a 
matter of conjecture who really produce the re- 
sults which the public experience. 

The abandoned character of Congress is exem- 
plified by the Congressional Record. The Record 
is not a report of actual proceedings, but is a 
repository of all such matter as members of Con- 
gress desire to put in print. Speeches are pub- 
lished that were never delivered, and speeches that 
were delivered are changed at pleasure. The law 

1 Congressional Record, August 19, 1894, p. 10,109. 

2 The Federalist, No. 58. 



238 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

allows members of Congress to send the Record 
free through the mails, so that it is extensively 
used for the purpose of circulating campaign litera- 
ture. Compilations of statistics, pamphlets, songs, 
and even entire books are introduced as part of 
the record of congressional proceedings. This 
abuse has increased enormously of late years, 
swelling the Record to absurdly vast dimen- 
sions. The proceedings of Congress during the 
entire period of the Civil War occupy less space 
by thousands of pages than the proceedings of 
any one Congress in the past decade. 



CHAPTER XX 

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

The House of Representatives takes its char- 
acter from the fact that it represents, not the 
nation, but the districts into which the nation is 
divided. It is powerfully acted upon by external 
agencies of party rule, but there is in its constitu- 
tion no embodiment of national control to which 
particular demands and impulses must be subor- 
dinated. Hence it lacks the faculty of self-govern- 
ment which, whether in the state or in the individ- 
ual, implies the supremacy of reason over desire. 
The consequence is that, when the House is not 
acting under a party mandate, it is a scuffle of 
local interests in which every member must take 
his part under penalty of losing his seat. " What 
has he done for his district ? " is a question which 
applies the test by which ordinarily the value of a 
representative is gauged. While eminent party 
service will add to his reputation, it does not 
lessen his dependence upon his local constituency. 
The dominant idea is that it is the proper business 
of a member to represent his district, and most 

239 



240 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

people would be surprised to hear that any other 
idea could be entertained. 1 

This idea of particular representation works in 
the district itself. The county in which the rep- 
resentative may happen to reside "has had the 
nomination," and that is a reason why another 
county or part of the district should have the 
nomination next time. Men of distinguished abil- 
ity or powerful influence may override such con- 
siderations, but the tendency towards change is apt 
to prevail in the end. Joshua Giddings represented 
his district for over twenty years, but lost the nomi- 
nation when he was at the height of his national 
renown, and when the party in whose cause he had 
fought so long and valiantly was on the verge of 
success. National leaders such as Seward and 
Sumner deplored the loss to the party, and this 
feeling was generally expressed by the party press, 
but as the New Yoi'k Evening Post at the time 
remarked, " The people of a congressional district 



J No other idea than that of local representation penetrates con- 
gressional thoughts. For instance, Senator Hawley said : " I re- 
member that when John Morrissey, the pugilist, was elected to the 
House of Representatives from a district of New York City, it was 
freely said by some that he was the best man in the district, the 
fairest representative that could be selected. He would not lie and 
he was not afraid, and those are two great virtues. In addition to 
that, he stood by his friends, and he knew what his district wanted. 
He was their champion in Congress as well as in the fistic arena." 
Congressional Record, Fifty-fourth Congress, second session, page 
2957. 



THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 24 1 

of course have the right to manage their own 
affairs in their own way." 

The gerrymandering schemes by which the 
state legislatures keep reconstructing congressional 
districts also contribute to the process of change. 
In any parliamentary system the absence of Mr. 
McKinley from the national legislature at the 
time when the measure which bore his name was 
a party issue, would be regarded as a grave aber- 
ration from the regular working of party govern- 
ment, and his party would see to it that he should 
be provided with a seat. No such idea is extant in 
this country. His party denounced the action of 
the Ohio legislature in putting the bulk of his con- 
stituency into another district ; but to ask that other 
district to give him a seat would have been regarded 
as equivalent to asking it to forego its right to direct 
representation. The farthest that party esteem of 
his services could go was to advance the suggestion 
that he should move into the other district. 

As a result of these various influences, a con- 
tinual change goes on in the composition of the 
House irrespective of vicissitudes of party strength. 
At every Congress there are a large number of 
new members, and by the time they have gained 
useful experience they give place to other new 
members. 1 Men strong enough to keep their foot- 

1 Each succeeding House in the ten Congresses (1861-1881), with 
a single exception, contained a majority of new members. Blaine's 
Twenty Years in Congress, Vol. II., p. 675. 



242 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

ing feel the strain of the continual watchfulness 
and effort that are required, and would greatly 
prefer a seat in the Senate, where the term of 
office is longer. 

Service to local interests being the test of capa- 
city, members must admit any method of rendering 
such service, or else relinquish their seats to others 
not so scrupulous. Hence the long-established 
practice of "log-rolling," by which many minority 
interests are united to form an overwhelming 
majority. This is the way in which extravagant 
River and Harbor and Public Buildings appropria- 
tion bills are passed. The many absurdities of the 
River and Harbor bills are often pointed out in 
debate, 1 but they are passed just the same, and 
against such raids the presidential veto is not an 
effective barrier, as members will unite regardless 
of party lines to pass the bill over the veto. 

Another manifestation which excites the sur- 
prise of those who do not understand the devotion 
of the House to particular interests, is the flood 

1 In the course of debate, March 13, 1897, Mr. Hepburn, of Iowa, 
called attention to the fact that there were appropriations for the 
improvement of the Chickasay River, the commerce of which in 1895 
consisted of 30 tons of cotton, 100 tons of rosin and turpentine, 
and 3 tons of miscellaneous produce ; also of the Leef River, on 
which one small stern-wheel steamboat makes occasional trips, the 
total commerce borne by this stream in 1895 being 50 tons. The 
speaker justly remarked that the government might as well spend 
money on county roads as on such streams. Congressional Record, 
Fifty-fourth Congress, second session, p. 2970. 



THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 243 

of bills of a freakish character which pour into it 
at every session. A part of the service required 
of a member is that he shall introduce bills of any 
nature desired by local interests, and his industry 
in this respect is one of the ways in which he may 
show his ability as a representative of his district. 
All that is really desired in most cases is that the 
bills shall be printed at the expense of the govern- 
ment, and copies furnished for distribution. 

A body of such character could hardly be ex- 
pected to form or maintain traditions of conduct 
which imply an active sense of corporate honor 
and responsibility. The House is neither proud 
nor sensitive in regard to its prerogatives. At 
the time the constitution was formed, the House 
of Commons had established the right of originat- 
ing all money bills. Even if an amendment pro- 
posed by the Lords should be acceptable, the House 
would maintain its dignity by throwing out the 
bill and then passing another bill embodying the 
amendment. In pursuance of the design of limit- 
ing as much as possible the powers of the House 
of Representatives, the framers of the constitution 
provided that "all bills for raising revenue shall 
originate in the House of Representatives, but the 
Senate may propose or concur with amendments 
as on other bills." 1 With the exception of the 

1 The rules of the House originally provided that " no bill 
amended by the Senate shall be committed," but this rule was 
stricken out, January 12, 1791. 



244 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

right of impeachment and the power to elect a 
President in default of a choice by the electors, 
the clause quoted sets forth the only exclusive 
privilege allowed the House by the constitution ; 
but the House has been so careless about it that 
the Senate may, if it pleases, extend its right of 
amendment to the origination of an entirely new 
measure. The tariff act of 1883 really originated 
in the Senate, where it was added to a small in- 
ternal revenue reduction bill which came over 
from the House, and the new bill with some 
changes was accepted by the House. When the 
Mills bill passed the House in 1888, the Senate 
under the form of an amendment proposed a sub- 
stitute measure. In the discussion which followed 
on the comparative merits of the two bills, the 
point of constitutional authority made no figure at 
all. The House bill was the Democratic party 
measure, and the Senate bill was the Republican 
party measure, and so the matter rested. The 
manner in which the enactment of the tariff bill 
of 1894 was taken from the House by the Senate 
is still fresh in the public mind. The House then 
did make some show of standing up for its privi- 
leges, but soon made a hasty retreat, passing the 
bill just as it came from the Senate. As regards 
special appropriation bills the Senate may, with- 
out question, originate and pass all it pleases. Its 
right to do so has been admitted by the House. 1 

1 House Reports, No. 147, Forty-sixth Congress, third session. 



THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 245 

In order to reach the susceptibilities of the 
House it is necessary to touch it upon points 
relating to its service to local and personal in- 
terests. The greater ability of the Senate in 
providing for itself in the way of patronage and 
perquisites, and the address with which it carries 
its point in the frequent squabbles over such mat- 
ters, causes much sore feeling in the House ; but 
it is moved rather by envy than indignation. The 
House is also irritable in regard to the treaty- 
making power when it is applied to commercial 
subjects, which may affect district interests. The 
constitution confides this power to the President 
and the Senate. In Washington's time the House 
attempted to take jurisdiction of treaties, and made 
a formal demand for all the documents relating to 
the Jay treaty of 1794 with Great Britain. This 
demand was firmly resisted by the President, and 
the House has never been able to extend its power 
in that direction. The ratification of a treaty by 
the Senate makes it the law of the land ; on the 
other hand, the regulation of commerce is vested 
in Congress, so that, as regards commercial treaties, 
there is ground on which the House might inter- 
vene. The matter has been the occasion of angry 
contention between the two Houses, but the House 
of Representatives has never failed to enact legis- 
lation required to carry out the provisions of a 
treaty. 1 The truth of the matter is — and this is 

1 The action of the House on the Mexican reciprocity treaty of 
1883 is really no exception to this rule. Out of consideration for 



246 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

the secret of its behavior — that the time of mem- 
bers is so taken up with the affairs of their districts * 
that the natural disposition of the House is to pay 
no attention to other matters, save as party obli- 
gation requires, and party has no regard for any- 
thing save its own convenience, using indifferently 
either the House, the Senate, or the executive 
branch, to the extent of its power, just as may 
suit its ends for the time being. 

For these reasons, the abiding fear of the framers 
of the constitution, lest, notwithstanding all their 
checks and limitations, the House would engross 
power at the expense of the other branches of gov- 
ernment, has not been justified by events. The 
House is not so strong and influential now as when 
Congress first met. Its highest prerogative, which 

ex-President Grant, who had taken a personal interest in the nego- 
tiation, the Senate did not reject the treaty, but a stipulation was 
inserted that it should not take effect until Congress should pass 
laws to put it into operation. This was an indirect mode of de- 
feating it. In 1886 Mr. Hewitt introduced in the House a bill to 
give effect to the treaty, but it was adversely reported on by the Ways 
and Means Committee, and the House refused to consider the bill 
by a vote of 162 to 51. This ended the matter. 

1 The Washington Star, which has Congress within its local 
field, says : " In actual experience the new Congressman learns this, 
after he has been in Washington for awhile : that he is an attorney, 
a claim agent, an office broker, a bureau of general information, and 
an errand boy, with occasionally the addition of public entertainer 
and Capitol guide. Even the Speaker of the House, Mr. Reed, 
' the Czar,' may be seen at times pointing out things of interest to 
visitors, or calling up the echoes in statuary hall for their entertain- 
ment." 



THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 2Afi 

the framers of the constitution regarded as the 
foundation of its authority, — control of supplies, — 
has been relinquished. Madison remarked : " The 
House of Representatives cannot only refuse, but 
they alone can propose the supplies requisite for the 
support of the government. They, in a word, hold 
the purse : that powerful instrument by which we 
behold in the history of the British constitution an 
infant and humble representation of the people, 
gradually enlarging the sphere of its activity and 
importance, and finally reducing, as far as it seems 
to have wished, all the overgrown prerogatives of 
the other branches of the government." 1 In our 
times the spokesmen of the House plead its impo- 
tence as its excuse. At the close of the second 
session of the Fifty-fourth Congress, the chairman 
of the Appropriations Committee, reviewing the 
work of the session, declared that "the General 
Deficiency bill, in recent sessions, as it leaves the 
House, providing for legitimate deficiencies in 
current appropriations for the support of the 
government, is transformed into a mere vehicle 
wherein the Senate loads up and carries through 
every sort of claims that should have no consid- 
eration by either branch of Congress except as 
independent bills reported from competent commit- 
tees." He confessed that " the appropriations are, 
in my judgment, in excess of the legitimate de- 
mands of the public service." But he contended 

1 The Federalist, No. 58. 



248 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

that this condition of affairs was not the fault of 
the party in power. " It is the result of conditions 
accruing out of the rules of the House and out of 
the rules, practices, and so-called courtesies of the 
Senate, together with the irresponsible manner 
in which the executive submits to Congress esti- 
mates to meet expenditures for the conduct of 
the government." * Admissions almost as abject 
as these are frequently made in the House. 

In its final development the committee system 
has completely destroyed the control of the House 
over the national finances. Down to the year 1865 
something of the nature of a budget existed from 
the fact that all revenue and appropriation bills 
were referred to the Ways and Means Committee. 
All the great revenue measures and all the vast 
appropriations required by the Civil War were re- 
ported by that committee. But, in 1865, the Com- 
mittee on Appropriations was created, and that 
branch of legislative business was transferred to it 
from the Ways and Means Committee. In 1880 
the Agricultural appropriation bill was taken over 
by a committee of that name, and in 1883 the prac- 
tice of having the River and Harbor bill reported 
by a distinct committee was begun. In 1885 a 
wholesale distribution of the powers of the Com- 
mittee on Appropriations among other com- 
mittees took place. But six of the great annual 

1 Speech of Mr. Cannon, March 9, 1897. Congressional Record, 
pp. 2943-2944. 



THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 249 

appropriation bills remained in charge of the Com- 
mittee on Appropriations, the remaining appropri- 
ation bills, eight in number, being turned over to 
seven other committees. Mr. Randall, who was 
chairman of the Appropriations Committee, when 
its powers were thus mutilated, told the House at 
the time, " You will enter upon a path of extrava- 
gance you cannot foresee the length of or the depth 
of, until we find the Treasury of the country bank- 
rupt." In ten years his prediction was fulfilled. 
The distribution of the appropriations made just 
so many additional points upon which local inter- 
ests could mass their demands. The total appro- 
priations (exclusive of pensions) for the decade 
1 887-1 896, as compared with the decade 1877- 
1886, show an increase of $688,487,376. The 
appropriations increased 46.43 per cent, while the 
population increased 24.85 per cent. All sense of 
proportion between income and expenditure has 
been lost. 1 The Fifty-third Congress voted ap- 
propriations greatly in excess of the revenues of 
the government, and at the same time it refused 
to enable the government to borrow money to 
meet the obligations so profusely created. The 
government had to use authority conferred upon 

1 The effect of the distribution of the appropriation bills in pro- 
moting extravagance has been commented upon in Congress. For 
a detailed statement, see speech of Mr. Pitney of New Jersey, Con- 
gressional Record, February 17, 1897, Fifty-fourth Congress, second 
session, p. 2009, et seq. 



250 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

it by an old statute, not made for such an emer- 
gency, and not suited to the occasion. Bonds of 
longer term and higher interest rate than were 
at all necessary had to be sold to enable the 
Treasury to meet its engagements. The Fifty- 
fourth Congress, without having done anything 
to increase the revenues, increased the appropria- 
tions. Never were the exactions of local interests 
so monstrous as during this period. The largest 
River and Harbor appropriation bill ever reported 
in the history of the country was passed by the 
House without debate, and it was eventually passed 
by Congress over the veto of the President by a 
confederation of interests embracing members of 
all parties. To preserve the Treasury from the 
bankruptcy prepared by Congress, government 
bonds to the amount of $262,000,000 were sold. 
The blame of this shameful situation was bandied 
from one party to another, but there was a com- 
mon agreement that it was a matter beyond the 
power of Congress to control. 

The House is not oblivious to the shame of its 
situation, but such is its subserviency to local in- 
terests that it is unable to practise any self-con- 
trol. The best it can do is to put it out of its 
power to act at all by surrendering its liberty of 
action, in cases when party interests make it neces- 
sary to impose restraint. From this condition of 
affairs has emerged the strangest system of con- 
trol ever generated in political procedure — an ab- 



THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 25 1 

solute, discretionary negative upon action, vested 
in the Speaker. This authority has grown up from 
force of party necessity, and is extremely simple 
and arbitrary in mode of exercise. The Speaker 
refuses to recognize a member who has a proposi- 
tion to make that is not acceptable to the chair. 1 
This authority, which was to a large extent exer- 
cised by many preceding Speakers, reached its full 
development under Speaker Carlisle, and he made 
it an effectual interdict upon legislation calculated 
to obtain the support of local interests in a way 
antagonistic to his party policy. Hence the Blair 
Educational bill, although it passed the Senate 
three times, was never voted on by the House 
because Mr. Carlisle would never recognize a 
member to make a motion to take it up for con- 
sideration. He refused to allow the House to 
consider a bill for the repeal of the internal taxes, 
upon tobacco, and in a written communication to 
the advocates of the measure declared his unwill- 
ingness to recognize any member of the House for 
the purpose of moving the consideration of that 
bill. Subsequent Speakers have exercised the 
same power quite as absolutely. It has become 
the practice for members to petition a Speaker to 
permit the House to consider its own business, 
and the Speaker does not hesitate to disregard 
such petitions, even when signed by enough mem- 

1 See Chap. IX. of Follett's The Speaker of the House for a 
discussion of this curious subject. 



252 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

bers to remove him from the chair and elect an- 
other in his place. Such an anomaly can be 
explained only by the fact that members value 
the protection thus afforded against a pressure of 
local interests injurious to the general welfare of 
national party organization. 1 

The characteristics which have been described 
are reflected in the behavior of the House. A 
visitor sees a noisy body, whose least concern 
seems to be that of deliberation. Members are 
sitting at desks writing, or are lounging on sofas, 
or are talking together in little groups. There is 
a constant movement in and out of the smoking 
rooms under the galleries. Hands are clapping 
to summon pages, who are constantly going up 
and down the aisles on errands for members. 
There is a continual noise and bustle, whose 
aggressive volume frequently provokes the pound- 
ing of the Speaker's gavel. A member may be 
addressing the chair, but few members seem to 
be paying any attention to him. The manual of 
parliamentary law, prepared by Jefferson from 

1 " Congressman Ernest F. Acheson was in Pittsburg yesterday. 
He said he had been forced to agree with Speaker Reed in refus- 
ing to give a place to the Omnibus bill, providing appropriations 
for seventy public buildings, three of which were to be located in 
Wilkesbarre, Altoona, and his own town of Washington. Speaker 
Reed showed that the deficit for the month current was already 
$8,107,118, and for the fiscal year $46,009,514. And thus it was 
he refused to grant a petition signed by 308 members of the House." 
The Pittsburg Dispatch, January 24, 1897. 



THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 253 

the rules of Parliament when it was supposed 
that the House would be likewise a deliberative 
body, remarks that "if a member finds that it 
is not the inclination of the House to hear him, 
and that by conversation or any other noise they 
endeavor to drown his voice, it is his most prudent 
way to submit to the pleasure of the House and 
sit down." If this advice were followed, there 
would be few speeches in Congress. But mem- 
bers are not concerning themselves about the 
pleasure of the House ; they are speaking for 
their districts — "for Buncombe County," as one 
of them once explained, thus furnishing a generic 
phrase to describe congressional oratory. It is 
difficult to hear any speaker all over the big hall, 
and when a really interesting speaker is on the 
floor, members leave their seats and crowd around 
him. Outside of the impromptu mass-meeting 
which he is addressing, members continue at 
their writing or other occupations. There is very 
little real debate. When a measure before the 
House is a party issue, an equitable division of 
time is made, and speechmakers follow one 
another according to a set programme. The 
speeches are party pleas made, not to the 
House, but to the districts. It is a regular 
practice to write out speeches in advance and 
furnish copies to the press agencies. Before a 
party spokesman takes the floor, his speech will 
have been put in type in the newspaper offices. 



254 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

As soon as he begins, the press agencies send 
a bulletin to their clients, announcing that the 
speech is "released" — that is to say, that it 
may be published. Afternoon papers will come 
out with as much as they choose to give of the 
speech, most of which may have been unspoken 
at the time they went to press. Now and then 
wrangles take place and spiteful remarks pass 
between members, communicating to the proceed- 
ings something of the interest which attaches to 
the cockpit or the prize-ring; but the rule is to 
prearrange everything said and done. The pro- 
ceedings are quite formal, the object being not 
debate, but to accomplish what is called "making 
up the record." 

In recent times the powerful influence of party 
has been prominently displayed by the way it 
keeps shaping the rules of the House 1 of Repre- 
sentatives so as to compel obedience to its be- 
hests. In proportion as rules designed to secure 
consideration of legislation are used by minorities 
to obstruct the passage of party measures, parti- 
san ingenuity has been stimulated to find a 
remedy, until finally expedients have been de- 
vised by means of which the avenues of legis- 
lation, crowded as they always are, may be 
temporarily cleared so as to give an open way 
to the passage of measures to which party ur- 
gency is conceded. A measure, which in the reg- 
ular course of procedure it might take weeks or 



THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 255 

months to reach, if it could be reached at all, 
can be called up and put to vote at any time, if 
the Speaker of the House and his two party col- 
leagues, constituting the majority of the Com- 
mittee on Rules, decide to have it so. Thus the 
bill which the Senate substituted for the Wilson 
Tariff bill was taken up in the House and passed, 
and then four supplemental tariff bills were re- 
ported and passed, all in one day. The various 
devices of filibustering have been met by modifi- 
cations of the rules, until it is impossible to pre- 
vent a majority in the House from proceeding 
with any business it is determined to transact. 
The Senate has not been subjected to the same 
control, for the reason that it is a body which 
until recent times possessed more self-control 
than the House, and was less impeded by its 
rules in the despatch of business. But since ex- 
perience has shown that it is no longer to be 
trusted to act with party honesty, the same press- 
ure of party organization for control of proceed- 
ings to which the House has been subjected is 
rising against the Senate. 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE SENATE 

The Senate has had a singular career, and its 
character was slow in taking definite form. Origi- 
nally intended to combine the functions of a privy 
council and a House of Lords, the first part of the 
scheme was soon found to be impracticable. The 
only instance of any exercise of such a function 
since Washington's unsatisfactory experience was 
during Polk's administration, and his action was 
a political manoeuvre rather than a sincere con- 
sultation. There had been a good deal of party 
jockeying over the Oregon boundary question, but 
the President pulled the Senate up sharp by in- 
viting its advice whether he should accept or de- 
cline Great Britain's proposition to settle upon the 
forty-ninth parallel from the Rocky Mountains to 
the Pacific. The Senate shrank from advising 
rejection, and thus it precluded itself from blam- 
ing the administration for the surrender of the 
extreme claims which demagogues in Congress had 
been making. In the ordinary procedure of the 
Senate, all that remains of its privy council func- 
tion is the fossil imprint preserved in the phrase 

256 



THE SENATE 2$? 

" the Senate advises and consents " used in ratify- 
ing treaties or confirming appointments. 

As an adaptation of the House of Lords, the 
Senate soon bettered the model in grasp of author- 
ity. It had not been expected that it would equal 
the House in political weight. " Against the force 
of the immediate representatives of the people," 
wrote Madison, " nothing will be able to maintain 
even the constitutional authority of the Senate, 
but such display of enlightened policy and attach- 
ment to the public good as will divide with that 
branch of the legislature the affections and sup- 
port of the entire body of the people themselves." * 
This expectation had much to do with reconciling 
the larger states to the admission of the smaller 
on an equal footing with them in the Senate. At 
the outset the course of legislation seemed to verify 
the forecast. The Senate was quite unable to con- 
trol the situation. Its schemes for surrounding 
the presidency with monarchical ceremonial were 
brushed aside by the House in a way that made it 
appear ridiculous. But it soon regained its poise, 
and before the first session was over it had mani- 
fested in its relations with the House those superi- 
orities of address and management which have 
since become its recognized characteristics, and to 
which the House of Lords can offer no parallel. 
In this respect the framers of the constitution were 
entirely out in their calculations. They had as- 

1 The Federalist, No. 63. 



258 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

sumed that the Senate, as the institution corre- 
sponding with the House of Lords, would encounter 
the same resistance from the popular branch of 
the government. But the case was quite different. 
The House of Lords represented a distinct order 
in the state. Its natural disposition was to use 
its influence and opportunities in behalf of its own 
class, and this fact insured the jealous antagonism 
of the body representing the mass of the people. 
The political position of the Lords was unassail- 
able, so that their political privileges could be 
confined only by the collective weight and dignity 
of the House of Commons. On the other hand, 
aristocratic influence was so strong in the House 
of Commons that it could pursue its interests 
there with the advantage of avoiding jealousies 
and resentments that would be excited by the 
same measures if proposed by the House of Lords. 
But the Senate and the House of Representatives 
did not represent different orders. At the most 
they represented only gradations in the general 
class of politicians. The official tenure of senators 
was different from that of members of the House, 
but it was likewise based upon party interest. 
State attachments established groups of senators 
and representatives united by bonds too powerful 
to be seriously disturbed by jealousies and antag- 
onisms arising out of the parliamentary relations 
of the two Houses. It was an early practice for 
the members of state delegations to meet together 



THE SENATE 259 

and act in concert, so that a disposition was soon 
created to regard any special facilities which either 
Senate or House possessed as belonging to the 
same general fund of political opportunity. What 
members of the House could not accomplish in 
their branch, they sought to obtain through their 
allies in the Senate. The first Congress had been 
in session just one month when Maclay noted in 
his diary, "The moment a party finds a measure 
lost or likely to be lost, all engines are set to work 
in the upper House." This tendency gave the 
Senate a free hand in legislation, and it was soon 
altering and amending bills at its pleasure without 
exciting any serious contention as to the extent of 
its powers. Its privileges in this respect being 
put on an equality with those of the House, its 
advantages of position soon made themselves felt. 
Having a small membership, it could act quickly, 
and, since its organization was perpetual, it had 
time to wait in order to carry a point, so that it 
was apt to get the best of the House when dis- 
putes occurred. This superiority, which it has 
always since manifested, was fully developed dur- 
ing the first session. 

While the Senate thus successfully stretched 
its legislative authority to lengths beyond the 
reckoning of the framers of the constitution, it 
was equally as prompt in seeking to extend the 
powers which it derived from its partial associa- 
tion with the President in executive functions. An 



260 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

abuse of the power of confirmation in order to 
coerce the President's exercise of his right of 
making appointments to office was perpetrated 
by the Senate during Washington's administra- 
tion. Speaking of the agency of the Senate in 
regard to appointments, Hamilton had remarked 
that "there will be no exertion of choice on the 
part of senators." 1 But while the Senate was 
still fresh from the hands of its creators, Wash- 
ington's nomination of a naval officer for the port 
of Savannah was rejected because he was unac- 
ceptable to the senators from Georgia. This 
action elicited a special message from Washing- 
ton, defending the fitness of his first nomination ; 
but he avoided further contention by making a 
new nomination. The distrust with which the 
Federalist party leaders regarded Adams caused 
an extraordinary degree of interference with his 
freedom of choice, and Madison also had to endure 
much dictation from the Senate. 2 

Nevertheless, in political prestige, the Senate 
long remained inferior to the House. The House 

1 The Federalist, No. 66. 

2 These instances do not seem to have attracted the attention of 
the early commentators on the constitution. Kent, in 1826, said of 
the Senate : " Having no agency in the nominations, nothing but 
simply consent or refusal, the spirit of personal intrigue and per- 
sonal attachment must be pretty much extinguished for a want of 
means to gratify it. Commentaries, Vol. I., p. 288. Story, writing 
in 1833, spoke of the Senate as having "but a slight participation 
in the appointments to office." Commentaries, section 752. 



THE SENATE 26 1 

took the lead in legislation of all kinds, the Senate 
devoting more time to the revision of House bills 
than to originating bills of its own. The Senate 
originally sat with closed doors. It was a private 
conference of provincial notables, affording no 
opportunities to talent ambitious of political re- 
nown. Its members might be really influential 
in dispensing patronage or directing legislation, 
but they did not appear upon the stage of affairs. 
In this respect the situation was somewhat like 
what it was in England, when the famous states- 
men were those who, like Pitt or Fox or Burke, 
had the ear of the people ; while lords and privy 
councillors were determining the personnel of 
ministries and really controlling the management 
of public affairs. This distinction was, however, 
more important in the United States, for it meant 
for the Senate the exclusion of its members from 
the highest office in the state — the great goal of 
political ambition. Presidential timber was not 
grown in the Senate. 

The parliamentary regime which grew up under 
the Virginian dynasty depreciated the Senate in 
a peculiar manner. The Congressional Caucus de- 
termined the presidential succession, and senators 
as Caucus members were in about the same posi- 
tion as the delegates-at-large to a modern national 
convention — few in number as compared with the 
district delegates, and undistinguishable from them 
in privilege and opportunity. In this field the 



262 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

united influence of the Senate could not rival 
that of a popular Speaker like Henry Clay. The 
House made Presidents and exercised a control- 
ling influence upon public policy. Madison could 
not be reelected President until he had accepted 
the policy of the leaders of the House, which 
brought on the War of 1812. 

The Jacksonian revolution had a remarkable 
effect upon the Senate. It seemed actually to be 
exalted by the general overthrow of parliamentary 
rule, even as a tower shows its height more im- 
pressively when the edifice which it had buttressed 
lies in ruins. The permanency of its organization, 
and the independent foundation of authority which 
it derived from the principle of state authority on 
which it was constituted, protected it from the 
sharp vicissitudes to which the House was exposed, 
so that its chamber became the refuge of the great 
parliamentary leaders, — Webster, Clay, and Cal- 
houn, — and public attention was concentrated upon 
its proceedings. The prestige of the Senate both 
at home and abroad was the creation of this period. 
The superior dignity and intellectuality of the 
Senate made a deep impression upon foreign ob- 
servers. De Tocqueville contrasted the two Houses 
with expressions of wonder that one body should 
be " remarkable for its vulgarity and its poverty of 
talent, while the other seems to enjoy a monopoly 
of intelligence and sound judgment." The only 
reason by which he could account for this was that 



THE SENATE 263 

" the House of Representatives is elected by the 
populace directly, while the Senate is elected by an 
indirect application of universal suffrage." The 
Senate still retains a higher reputation abroad than 
it has ever had in this country. So late as the 
year 1896, Mr. Lecky referred to it as "this illus- 
trious body, which plays so important a part in 
American history, and has excited the envy and 
admiration of many European statesmen and 
writers on politics." 1 

It was very natural to conclude that the conser- 
vatism and dignity of the Senate were the nor- 
mal characteristics of a body so constituted, for 
the course of events long tended to impress such 
qualities of behavior upon the Senate. The War 
of 1 8 12 caused a strong reaction against the strict 
and narrow views of national authority to which 
Jefferson and Madison had resorted in combating 
the Federalist administrations ; and a movement 
towards a broad and liberal interpretation of consti- 
tutional powers was started under Southern leader- 
ship. This movement was checked by the struggle 
over the admission of Missouri and the passage of 
the Missouri compromise, which excluded slavery 
from so large a section of the country as to make 
it certain that the preponderance of congres- 
sional influence would pass to the free states. 
It therefore became the policy of the Southern 
leaders to limit as strictly as possible the field of 

1 Democracy and Liberty, Vol. I., p. 445. 



264 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

federal authority and to exalt state rights. Their 
control, being proportionately much stronger in 
the Senate than in the House, had the practical 
effect of causing the Senate to exert a restrain- 
ing and moderating influence upon congressional 
action, thus exhibiting it as the more conservative 
body. 

Influences which tended to make the Senate 
illustrious were also developed by the new turn 
given to political activities. Throughout what 
may be called the middle period of our politics, 
extending from the Jacksonian era down to the 
Civil War, the dominant issues turned upon ques- 
tions of principle that made the most thrilling ap- 
peals to the moral sentiments of the people, while 
their scope comprehended the very nature of the 
constitution and the respective rights of the gen- 
eral government and of the states. Political 
necessity, as well as the demands of public senti- 
ment, tended to procure the selection of men 
strong enough to maintain themselves with credit 
in such a forum as the Senate had become, and 
so the line of statesmen came into being, whose 
powers were evoked by the slavery contest, mak- 
ing the debates of the Senate a school of political 
education for the nation. 

During its first period the Senate does not 
appear to have been a very dignified body. The 
ceremonious politeness of the times was a crust of 
formality that sometimes gave way explosively 



THE SENATE 265 

when passions boiled up, and such records of the 
debates as have come down to us indicate that 
controversy was apt to degenerate into peevish 
contention. 1 The reputation of the Senate for 
gravity and decorum was the creation of its second 
period, when it had become a parliamentary forum. 
Those traits were the result of a reciprocity of 
consideration between men who sat as state am- 
bassadors and whose character was strongly braced 
by state pride, and they were also upheld by the 
respect felt by statesmen for the means by which 
they obtained parliamentary distinction. By ex- 
alting the dignity of the Senate, they elevated the 
stage upon which they stood to address the nation. 
Privileges of unrestricted debate were not origi- 
nally possessed by the Senate. The rules adopted 
at the first session provided that "in case of a 
debate becoming tedious, four senators may call 
for the question,'' and this expedient for shutting 
off debate was freely used. Writing under date 
of March 2, 1791, Maclay says, "Every one that 
attempts to speak is silenced with the cry of 
'question.'" But such restraints came to be re- 
garded as incompatible with the dignity of a body 

1 Maclay relates that, on his making a motion which injured the 
pride of the Senate, by putting them on an equality with the House 
in the matter of compensation, " such a storm of abuse never, 
perhaps, fell upon any member. ' It was nonsense,' ' stupidity,' ' it 
was a misfortune to have men void of understanding in the House.' 
Izard, King, and Mr. Morris said every rude thing they could." 
Journal, p. 141. 



266 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

whose self-respect would keep it from abusing 
its privileges. Still cases may be found when 
debate was protracted to a tedious extent. After 
the Whig victory of 1840, Henry Clay complained 
that the minority was abusing the privilege of un- 
restricted debate, and he proposed the reintroduc- 
tion of the previous question ; but the proposition 
met with so much opposition that it was abandoned. 
It was felt, and not unjustly, that the privilege was 
safely confined by the dignity of the Senate. De- 
bate, as a filibustering practice, carried on for the 
purpose of legislative extortion, was a moral impos- 
sibility. 

This reputation of the Senate for dignity and 
conservatism not only helped to sustain the author- 
ity it had seized, but at one important juncture 
facilitated such an augmentation of it as to raise 
the Senate to an extraordinary pitch of power. 
During the Johnson administration, when by a 
combination of circumstances unlikely to recur, a 
parliamentary opposition to the executive was 
developed of such strength as to overbalance the 
weight of the presidential office, the victory of 
Congress was in effect the triumph of the Senate. 
Its advisory executive function was conveniently 
at hand for asserting congressional mastery of the 
situation. The Tenure of Office act was passed, 
virtually substituting the discretion of the Senate 
for that of the President in making removals from 
office. What was taken away from the President's 



THE SENATE 267 

authority by the united force of Congress was thus 
given to the Senate, while the House as a body 
gained nothing. In this way there came about a 
development of oligarchical power under a repub- 
lican form of government that was the wonder of 
the age. It seemed that while everywhere else 
upper Houses were decaying and their authority 
was becoming effete, the principle of aristocratic 
control was renewing its vigor in the constitution 
of the American Senate, making that body the 
envy _and admiration of Tory statesmen the world 
over. 

This was the culmination of the overt authority 
of the Senate. As soon as the temporary exigency, 
which produced the Tenure of Office act, had passed 
by, the House sought to repeal it. In deference 
to the appeal of President Grant in his inaugural 
address, the Senate modified the requirements of 
the law, but insisted on the point that its consent 
should be essential to removals from offices. In 
his message of December, 1869, President Grant 
declared the law "inconsistent with a faithful 
and efficient administration of the government," 
and the House soon after voted for its repeal by 
a majority of more than six to one. The Senate, 
however, adhered to its oligarchical power, and 
under it perfected the practice known as " the 
courtesy of the Senate," by which the power to 
make appointments to office in a particular state 
was in practice vested in the senators from that 



268 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

state. 1 The attempt of President Garfield to 
break down the senatorial usurpation caused a 
faction war which incited an assassin to take his 
life. The Senate, however, still clung to its 
powers and used them to harass President Cleve- 
land's administration, evoking his memorable 
message of March i, 1886. The issue had now 
become so menacing that considerations of party 
expediency compelled the Senate to surrender. 
The Tenure of Office law was repealed by the act 
of March 3, 1887. 

The force of public opinion has not only repelled 
the extension of the powers of the Senate, but it 
has to some extent curtailed them. The Senate 
would not now as a body dare to interfere with the 
President's selection of the members of his Cabinet, 
although originally the appointment of Cabinet 
officers was just as contingent upon its consent 
as the appointments of any other class of public 
officers. Neither would it dare openly to dispute 
the right of the President to select members of his 
own party to fill the public offices under his admin- 
istration, although quick to find pretexts for em- 
barrassing him in the exercise of that right. With 

1 In a speech April 6, 1893, Senator Hoar said : " When I came 
into public life in 1869, the Senate claimed almost the entire con- 
trol of the executive function of appointment to office. . . . What 
was called 'the courtesy of the Senate' was depended upon to 
enable a senator to dictate to the executive all appointments and 
removals in his territory." Congressional Record, Fifty-third 
Congress, p. 137. 



THE SENATE 269 

these exceptions, however, the Senate does not 
seem to have been sensibly abridged in its powers, 
and in all functions which it possesses in common 
with the House it still enjoys better opportunity 
with superior ability for accomplishing its purposes. 
Comparing its present with its original state, the 
authority of the Senate has on the whole greatly 
increased, while that of the House has diminished. 
The peculiar influences which created and sus- 
tained the prestige of the Senate have, however, 
passed away. The principle of state sovereignty 
is extinct, as a political force, and no longer 
interposes any check upon congressional action. 
Ability in the public championship of party prin- 
ciples has declined in importance, as compared 
with assiduity in service to party organization. 1 
Claims of distinction resting upon capacity in party 
service, either by craft of management or by ability 
to finance party organization, receive increasing 
recognition. 2 Senators quite different from the 
provincial notables of the first period, and still 
more different from the parliamentary leaders and 

1 In an article in the Forum for August, 1897, Senator Hoar 
remarked, as denoting changed conditions and without intention 
of disparaging the Senate as now constituted : " Were Webster, 
or Clay, or Calhoun, alive to-day, his career as a senator must be, 
from necessity, of a different character from what it was. His 
leadership and guidance of the public thought would be exercised 
by writing or speech elsewhere than in the Senate chamber." 

2 These two types are distinguished in popular parlance as " the 
boss " and " the man with the barrel." 



270 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

constitutional statesmen of the second period, have 
made their way into the Senate in such number 
as to determine its character as a body. 

The Senate, by its constitution, is protected 
against sudden change. Renewal of its member- 
ship is a slow and gradual process, so that the 
Senate at all times contains representatives of 
different periods of our politics. Then again, the 
variety of political conditions and party circum- 
stances in the various states is always reflected 
in the Senate by marked diversities of tempera- 
ment and mental capacity among its members. A 
general tendency towards a deep change in the 
character of the Senate is, however, quite dis- 
cernible. This tendency has been towards the 
conversion of the Senate into a Diet of party lords, 
wielding their powers without scruple or restraint 
in behalf of the particular interests which they 
represent. The privileges of unrestricted debate, 
which were once regarded as opportunities of dis- 
tinction, have become the intrenchments of partic- 
ular interests, the shelter of party treachery, and 
the ready instrument of extortion. 1 The debate 

1 In a speech, August 16, 1894, Senator Vest of Missouri re- 
marked : " Sir, after my experience in the last five months, I have 
not an enemy in the world whom I would place in the position 
that I have occupied as a member of the Finance Committee under 
the rules of the Senate. I would put no man where I have been, 
to be blackmailed and driven in order to pass a bill that I believe 
is necessary to the welfare of the country, by senators who desired 
to force amendments upon me against my better judgment, and 



THE SENATE 2*]\ 

on the Silver Repeal bill of 1893, during which a 
minority endeavored to extort a compromise by- 
refusing to allow a vote to be taken, was an exhi- 
bition of the degradation of the Senate, which made 
a profound impression upon public opinion. 

Notwithstanding the great change that has taken 
place in the character of the Senate, the general 
tone of its proceedings is superior to that of the 
House in decorum. It is composed of older, 
graver, more experienced men, but there have been 
occasions when it has been shown that all these 
moderating qualities are unable to stand the strain. 
It is a small body, so that excitement finds less 
fuel than in the House, and the dignified traditions 
of the Senate have not quite lost their hold. The 
fundamental distinction, however, lies in the cir- 
cumstances which set senators apart as a distinct 
class. The greater permanency of their tenure 
causes them to become residents of the national 
capital, while members of the House are, as a rule, 
transient sojourners. Connections of social interest 
have time to form, and these establish a community 
of feeling and a reciprocity of consideration which 
affect the tone of debate and modify party spirit. 
One of the difficulties which every administration 
has to encounter is the disposition of senators to 
stand together on issues affecting senatorial con- 
compel me to decide the question whether I will take any bill at 
all or a bill which has been distorted by their views and objects." 
Congressional Record, p. 1015. 



272 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

trol over patronage. A senatorial faction in revolt 
against the administration is certain to receive as 
much comfort and assistance from their fellows, 
irrespective of party attachment, as can be extended 
without endangering party position. 

While the manner differs, the method of legis- 
lative procedure is essentially the same as in the 
House ; but senators, being individually more 
powerful to obstruct, exhibit greater hardihood in 
making demands for concessions in return for their 
support to measures. Instead of having to resort to 
"log-rolling," as in the House, they practise what 
is known as "the legislative hold-up." 1 Legisla- 
tion is managed on the principle of give and take, 
each interest exacting conditions as the price of 
its support, and blocking action until satisfied. 

1 Senator Plumb of Kansas, in a speech March 3, 1891, said: 
" The Senate last year passed an amendment giving a bounty of two 
cents a pound on maple sugar, which is not only not a national in- 
dustry, but is the production of an article of luxury. After it was 
passed as a matter personal to himself (Mr. Morrill), on statements 
made by members of the Finance Committee, that it would help to 
reelect him to the Senate from Vermont, it was kept on because 
his colleague (Mr. Edmunds) threatened in writing that if it was 
not kept on he would vote against the tariff bill." Congressional 
Record, p. 3953. 

Senator MacPherson of New Jersey, in a speech March 8, 
1894, said : " I find a very severe criticism is being made upon the 
Finance Committee for not reporting the tariff bill back to the 
Senate. As to delaying its report, I wish to state that the delay is 
mine and mine only. . . . Whatever delay has happened has been 
owing to the fact that I have been struggling for a little higher rates 
of duty." Congressional Record, p. 3281. 



THE SENATE 273 

This has been defended as being the only way of 
obtaining fair-play for all interests. In a speech 
June 8, 1897, Senator Stewart of Nevada said: 
" What do we have representatives of different 
sections here for except to represent the interests 
of our constituents ? A senator near me suggests 
that we are here to get offices for our friends. 
That is not true, because only a part of us ever 
have a chance to do that. The offices are always 
monopolized by one side or the other. We are all 
here to see to the various interests in our parts of 
the country, to enact laws to protect them equally, 
and to live under equal laws. ... If the tariff 
laws are unfair, it is because senators in different 
sections have not looked after the interests of their 
constituents." 

With the deterioration of its character that has 
taken place, the composition of the Senate makes 
it inferior to the House in balance and moderation. 
In the House the weight of particular interests is 
proportioned to their popular strength, but in the 
Senate there may be a very great disproportion. 
Nevada, with a population of 45,761, has the same 
representation in the Senate as New York with 
5,997,853. Thirty-two million people in ten states 
are represented by twenty senators, while 29,- 
000,000 people in other states have a senatorial 
representation of sixty-eight. On February 1, 1896, 
the Senate substituted a free silver bill for the 
Treasury Relief bond bill passed by the House, 



274 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

by a vote of forty-two to thirty-five, but the minority 
represented nearly 8,000,000 more people than 
the majority. Vagaries of popular sentiment and 
transient delusions of opinion may be magnified 
in the Senate far beyond their real strength. Al- 
ready the consequences are such that the reputa- 
tion of the Senate for conservatism has become 
a faded tradition, and instead of regarding the 
Senate as a check upon the House, the people 
have gotten into the habit of looking to the House 
for restraint upon the extravagance and impetu- 
osity of the Senate. The change of public senti- 
ment in this respect has been so great as to force 
itself upon the recognition of the Senate itself. 
A Senate committee in a formal report has regret- 
fully admitted that "the tendency of public opinion 
is to disparage the Senate and depreciate its use- 
fulness, its integrity, its power." 1 

1 Senate Reports, No. 530, Fifty-fourth Congress, first session. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE PRESIDENCY 

According to the intention of the constitution 
it is the business of the President to run the gov- 
ernment. It is the business of other branches of 
the government to condition the operation of the 
executive department in accordance with the con- 
stitutional principles on which the government is 
founded ; but to take care of the government, to 
attend to its needs, to shape its policy, and to pro- 
vide for its responsibilities is the special business 
of the President. 

This might seem to be a better statement of the 
duties of the British ministry than of the President 
of the United States ; but the constitutional provi- 
sion requiring the President to " recommend" to 
the consideration of Congress " such measures as 
he shall judge necessary and expedient " contem- 
plated the discharge of just such duties of fore- 
sight and provision as are performed by the Brit- 
ish ministry. Gouverneur Morris, who did the 
actual work of draughting the constitution, gave 
precisely this illustration of the functions of the 
presidency when the office was under discussion. 
"Our President," he said, "will be the British 

275 



276 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

minister." * There was no dissent as to that; the 
controversies of the convention turned upon the 
mode of constituting the office, and the means by 
which it should be confined to its appointed sphere 
and at the same time be protected in it. The 
fathers knew very well that the king himself had 
been superseded by the ministry as the actual 
agency of government. In the same debate Mor- 
ris referred to the fact that "the real king" was 
" the minister." At that period the interception 
of royal duty by ministerial combinations, based 
upon parliamentary interest, was regarded as an 
aberration from the principles of the English con- 
stitution and as the chief source of political cor- 
ruption. The framers of the constitution took 
special pains to guard against a parliamentary con- 
trol. The President himself was to carry on the 
administration. In order that he might be able to 
impress his policy upon Congress with vigor and 
effect, the patronage of the government was placed 
in his hands. Appointments to office were referred 
to as "the principal source of influence." The 
fathers did not mince words in speaking of such 
matters; Morris bluntly declared that "the loaves 
and fishes must bribe the demagogues." 2 It should 
be borne in mind that the very object in view in 
framing the constitution was to enlist the passions 
and selfish interests of men on the side of social 
stability and public order. 

1 Madison's Journal, July 24. 2 Ibid., July 2. 



THE PRESIDENCY 277 

This duty of management was fully conceived 
by Washington and was habitually acted upon by 
him in his relations with Congress and in his use 
of the patronage of his office. The President's 
responsibility for national policy was the ground 
on which Hamilton appealed to Jefferson to exert 
his personal influence to secure votes to carry the 
assumption bill through Congress. Jefferson re- 
ports him as saying " that the President was the 
centre upon which all administrative questions 
ultimately rested, and that all of us should rally 
around him, and support with joint efforts meas- 
ures approved by him." 1 It was from the same 
point of view that Rufus King, one of the framers 
of the constitution, criticised Jefferson's behavior 
in the presidential office. Commenting upon the 
political situation in 1806, King remarked: "It is 
scarcely credible that the public honor and safety, 
instead of being well guarded by well-concerted 
and prudent arrangements, should be suffered to 
become the sport of the casual, intemperate, and 
inefficient measures of inexperienced individuals ; 
and yet the several messages of the President look 
as if every subject were to be submitted to Con- 
gress, without the disclosure of the views of the 
executive, which by the letter and spirit of our 
government is charged with our foreign affairs." 2 

The growth of parliamentary control which 

1 Writings of Jefferson, Vol. I., p. 163. 

2 Life and Correspondence, Rufus King, Vol. IV., p. 481. 



278 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

went on during the Virginia dynasty impaired 
the original conception of presidential duty, but 
did not extinguish it. It was still the usage for 
Congress to respect the President's initiative and 
provide for it. When this tradition of congres- 
sional behavior was ruptured by the violence of 
party strife during the administration of John 
Quincy Adams, there was a shock to conservative 
sentiment. Benton, himself a leader of the Jack- 
sonian party, whose work this was, said, "The 
appointment of the majority of members in all 
committees, and their chairmen, in both Houses, 
adverse to the administration, was a regular con- 
sequence of the inflamed state of parties, although 
the proper conducting of the public business 
would demand for the administration the chair- 
men of several important committees as enabling 
it to place its measures fairly before the House." 1 
The direct representative character imparted to 
the presidential office, when the machinery of the 
electoral college passed under the control of a 
system of popular election, gave the office a much 
firmer foundation than it originally possessed, and 
invigorated all its functions, so far as the inde- 
pendent powers of the executive department suf- 
ficed to give them efficiency. This condition was 
completely satisfied in the case of the veto power, 
but the correlative function, the legislative initia- 
tive, still dependent as it is upon congressional 

1 Thirty Years' View, Vol. I., p. 92. 



THE PRESIDENCY 279 

acquiescence, has shown no access of strength. It 
is complicated with the ordinary activities of Con- 
gress, and the operation of the presidential office 
in this respect has been obscure. Nevertheless, 
the fact is clear that the basis of administrative 
control is not Congress but the President. Pos- 
session of that office is the great object of party 
struggles. It is impossible for a party to carry 
out even a purely legislative programme unless it 
embodies a policy accepted by the President and 
sustained by the influence of his office. 

The agency of the presidential office has been 
such a master force in shaping public policy that 
to give a detailed account of it would be equiva- 
lent to writing the political history of the United 
States. From Jackson's time to the present day 
it may be said that political issues have been 
decided by executive policy. The independent 
treasury system introduced during Van Buren's 
administration was a measure formulated by the 
President and forced upon Congress. Tyler, al- 
though his congressional following was so weak 
that it was known as "the corporal's guard," pros- 
trated Whig plans for the reestablishment of the 
Bank of the United States and controlled the 
tariff policy of Congress. The annexation of 
Texas, which was the issue of the election of 
1844, originated as an executive proposal, and 
was consummated by Tyler before he retired 
from office. Polk's administration is associated 



280 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

with tariff reform and the Mexican War, both 
measures originating in executive policy. The 
slavery agitation, whose growing intensity was 
the chief feature of the administrations of Fill- 
more, Pierce, and Buchanan, presented issues 
which the executive department was, above all 
things, anxious to avoid, so that presidential in- 
fluence strongly supported a policy of adjustment 
and compromise by negotiation among the con- 
gressional factions; but nevertheless the issues 
which arose were shaped by executive policy, as 
the inevitable result of its trenchant nature. In 
the presence of emergency it is necessary to do 
one thing or another, and the decision stands out 
for condemnation or approval, thus furnishing a 
dividing line for party formation. The election 
of i860 turned on issues raised by executive policy 
in Kansas. The administration of President Lin- 
coln saw the opening of a new arsenal of presi- 
dential authority in the war powers, whose extent 
is still quite unmeasured. The President levied 
an army without authority of Congress, and before 
Congress had met. He assumed and exercised the 
right of suspending the writ of habeas corpus. 
The crowning event of his administration — the 
emancipation of the slaves — did not take place in 
pursuance of any act of Congress, but was done 
on his own authority as President, and was as 
absolute an exercise of power as the ukase of 
the Czar which freed the serfs of Russia. Presi- 



THE PRESIDENCY 28 1 

dent Lincoln was able to do these things by the 
direct support of public opinion, irrespective of 
the volition of Congress. Although in the case 
of his accidental successor, Congress was strong 
enough to enforce its own programme of recon- 
struction, it instinctively recognized the fact that 
it was not able to do so from its inherent au- 
thority. Senator Sherman put the case exactly 
when he said, "The recent acts of Congress, 
those acts upon which the President and Con- 
gress separated, were submitted to the people, 
and after a very full canvass and a very able 
one, in which great numbers of speeches were 
made on both sides, and documents were circu- 
lated, the people, who are the common masters 
of President and Congress, decided in favor of 
Congress." 1 That is to say, Congress prevailed 
not by virtue of its ordinary representative capa- 
city, but by express delegation for that special 
purpose. 

While all that a President can certainly accom- 
plish is to force a submission of an issue to the 
people, yet such is the strength of the office that, 
if he makes a sincere and resolute use of its re- 
sources, at the same time cherishing his party con- 
nection, he can as a rule carry his party with him, 
because of the powerful interests which impel it 
to occupy ground taken for it by the administra- 
tion. Many instances of this tendency may be 

1 Congressional Globe, January 8, 1867. 



282 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

found in our political history. A noted case in 
our own times is the result of General Grant's 
veto in 1874 of the bill providing for an additional 
issue of legal tender notes. Later on, the same 
Congress passed an act providing for the redemp- 
tion in coin of the outstanding issues. 

On the other hand, unless a measure is made an 
administrative issue, Congress is unable to make 
it a party issue. Colonel W. R. Morrison, when 
the Democratic leader of the House, was unable to 
accomplish the passage of a tariff bill although 
there was a party majority. His explanation of 
his failure is that " my bills all lacked the in- 
fluence of administration and party support and 
patronage." Colonel Morrison's successor, Mr. 
Mills, was more fortunate in his leadership of the 
House, because "when Mr. Cleveland took decided 
ground in favor of revision and reduction he rep- 
resented the patronage of the administration, in 
consequence of which he was enabled to enforce 
party discipline, so that a man could no longer be 
a good Democrat and favor anything but the re- 
form of the tariff." x 

If, in default of a definite administrative policy 
vigorously asserted, Congress is left to its own 
devices, issues are compromised and emergencies 
are dealt with by makeshift expedients. The com- 
plex entanglements of the currency situation were 
brought about in this way. But even then, the 

1 New York Sun interview, September 12, 1893. 



THE PRESIDENCY 283 

presidential authority, however passive its condi- 
tion, continues to be a factor of great importance. 
The passage of the silver bullion purchase act of 
1890, according to its framer, Senator Sherman, 
was thus the result of the President's attitude, 
although the President had nothing directly to do 
with it. Senator Sherman says : " A large major- 
ity of the Senate favored free silver; and it was 
feared that the small majority against it in the 
other House might yield and agree to it. The 
silence of the President in the matter gave rise to 
an apprehension that if a free coinage bill should 
pass both Houses, he would not feel at liberty to 
veto it. Some action had to be taken to prevent 
a return to free silver coinage, and the measure 
evolved was the best obtainable." 1 The repeal of 
this law in November, 1893, after a memorable 
struggle in the Senate, affords a conspicuous 
example of the efficiency of the presidential office 
in influencing legislation when in earnest about 
the discharge of that duty. 

The evidence which our history affords seems 
conclusive of the fact that the only power which 
can end party duplicity and define issues in such 
a way that public opinion can pass upon them 
decisively, is that which emanates from presiden- 
tial authority. It is the rule of our politics that 
no vexed question is settled except by executive 
policy. Whatever may be the feeling of Congress 

1 Sherman's Memoirs, p. 1070. 



284 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

towards the President, it cannot avoid an issue 
which he insists upon making. And this holds 
good of presidents who lose their party leader- 
ship as with those who retain it. Tyler, Johnson, 
and Cleveland, although repudiated by the parties 
which elected them, furnished the issues upon 
which party action turned. 

The rise of presidential authority cannot be 
accounted for by the intention of presidents : it is 
the product of political conditions which dominate 
all the departments of government, so that Con- 
gress itself shows an unconscious disposition to 
aggrandize the presidential office. The existence 
of a separate responsible authority to which ques- 
tions of public policy may be resigned opens to 
Congress an easy way out of difficulty when the 
exercise of its own jurisdiction would be trouble- 
some. Its servitude to particular interests makes 
it chary of issues which may cause dissension. It 
goes only so far as it is compelled to go in obedi- 
ence to a party mandate, and is apt to leave as much 
as possible to executive discretion. So it happens 
that important determinations of national policy 
are reached in ways that seem to ignore congres- 
sional authority, although the circumstances imply 
congressional acquiescence. A curious case in 
point is the well-known fact that the gold reserve 
fund, which became the base of the monetary sys- 
tem of the nation, was the creation of the execu- 
tive department. There is no law on the statute 



THE PRESIDENCY 285 

books which directed or authorized the establish- 
ment of a gold reserve fund. The act of 1875 f° r 
the resumption of specie payments authorized the 
Secretary of the Treasury to sell bonds to enable 
him to redeem in coin the legal tender notes of 
the United States. Under the authority of that 
law Secretary Sherman collected $100,000,000 in 
gold which was designated as the reserve fund, 
and its existence has been only indirectly recog- 
nized by subsequent legislation. 

When the reserve fund was depleted during the 
panic of 1 893-1 894, the administration was reluc- 
tant to take the responsibility of selling bonds to 
replenish the fund, and submitted to the Senate 
Committee on Finance the draught of a bill, 
specially authorizing the sale of bonds for that 
purpose. The party leaders, however, advised the 
executive department to proceed upon its own 
responsibility, on the ground, as given by Sena- 
tor Voorhees, chairman of the Finance Commit- 
tee, that " it will be wiser, safer, and better for 
the financial and business interests of the country 
to rely upon existing law with which to meet the 
present emergency rather than to encounter the 
delays and uncertainties always incident to pro- 
tracted discussion in the two Houses of Con- 
gress." 2 This confession of the incapacity of 
Congress in the presence of an emergency, made 
with such exquisite candor, gave no sting to par- 

1 Statement furnished to the Associated Press, January 16, 1894. 



286 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

liamentary pride, and excited no comment. The 
opposition of course promptly denied the right of 
the administration to issue bonds, but it did not 
seem to occur to any one that the abased attitude 
assigned to Congress was at all unfitted to its dig- 
nity. The whole debate turned upon points of 
law. 

The strong disposition of Congress to extend 
the scope of federal duty powerfully stimulates 
the development of presidential authority. That 
authority may emerge with startling vigor from 
the implications of laws enacted without any idea 
of producing such results. A memorable instance 
is the manner in which the last vestige of the old 
state sovereignty doctrine was obliterated from 
practical politics by the agency of the interstate 
commerce act. In assuming to regulate interstate 
commerce, Congress put upon the national adminis- 
tration the responsibility of maintaining interstate 
railroads as national highways. The significance 
of this never dawned upon the country until the 
railroad strikes of 1894 took place, when the arm 
of federal power was suddenly extended to suppress 
riot and quell disorder. The popular belief had 
always been that the national government could 
not act in such cases until requested by state 
authority, but how state authority was not only 
ignored, but its protests were unheeded. Time 
was when such action would have convulsed the 
nation and might have caused collision between 



THE PRESIDENCY 287 

state and federal authority, but the act was hailed 
with intense gratification both North and South ; 
the governors who took up the old cry of state 
rights were loaded with derision, and a Congress, 
Democratic in both branches, passed resolutions 
by acclamation approving the action of the execu- 
tive. 

Such vigor, in an authority which the framers 
of the constitution erected with painful misgivings 
as to its stability, becomes the more impressive 
when it is contrasted with the lot of the institu- 
tion upon which it was patterned. The Federalist 
makes a detailed comparison between the powers 
of the President and the British crown, so as to 
exhibit the more stringent limitations and the infe- 
rior authority of the presidency. Since then every 
power ascribed to the king has withered ; but there 
is no authority conceded to the President, at the 
time the duties of the office began, that is not 
flourishing with unimpaired vigor. Moreover, 
authority which the early Presidents would not 
have ventured to assume is now regarded as be- 
longing to the ordinary functions of the office. 
This aggrandizement of presidential authority has 
gone on under all parties since Jackson's time, and 
in the hands of men of widely varying capacity. 
The tendency is so powerful that it sustains itself 
against the great weakness of the vice-presidency 
in our constitutional system. That office, of such 
small, ordinary importance that it is disposed of 



288 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

as an incident in the struggle for the presidential 
nomination, serving as a make-weight on the ticket, 
or as a sop to faction, may at any time produce 
a President. Men have been raised to the presi- 
dency who never would have been thought of as 
a candidate for that office ; but its powers have 
sustained no permanent loss thereby. Although 
once executive power, in the hands of an accidental 
President, was bent and held down by the weight 
of a huge congressional majority, its springs were 
unbroken, and it sprang up unhurt when the abnor- 
mal pressure was removed. Incidentally the history 
of Andrew Johnson's administration discloses the 
fact that the extraordinary check provided by the 
constitution — the process of impeachment — is 
practically worthless. It remains in the armory 
of Congress, a rusted blunderbuss, that will prob- 
ably never be taken in hand again. 

Another check upon the power of the President, 
which has been made obsolete by the peculiar turn 
taken by our constitutional development, is the 
power of the House to refuse supplies. Madison 
said : "The House of Representatives cannot only 
refuse, but they alone can propose the supplies 
requisite for the support of the government. . . . 
This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded 
as the most effectual weapon with which any con- 
stitution can arm the immediate representatives 
of the people, for obtaining a redress of every 
grievance, and for carrying into effect every just 



THE PRESIDENCY 289 

and salutary measure." 1 Such an opinion was 
fully warranted by English constitutional history, 
but it has been falsified by American experience. 
As a means of coercing the administration, con- 
trol of supply failed so completely when the 
test was made that it is not likely that such an 
use of it will ever be made again. Probably the 
attempt would not have been made at all had 
it not been for the extraordinary circumstances 
of the presidential election of 1876 and the moral 
weakness of President Hayes' position. The 
House attempted to reduce federal control of 
elections by annexing conditions to appropriation 
bills ; but the demands of the House were baffled 
by a series of vetoes, and in the end Congress had 
to pass the appropriation bills without the extrane- 
ous legislation to which the President objected. 
It is now a fact recognized by all parties that the 
idea of stopping the government by withholding 
supplies cannot even be considered seriously. As 
a practical expedient, such a check upon executive 
authority no longer exists. The federal election 
laws that were attacked in 1876 were repealed in 
1894, but that was not until the people had put 
a President in office who was favorable to the 
repeal. 

Although the power of making appointments to 
office has been, to a large extent, practically taken 
over by the Senate, under the exercise of the au- 

1 The Federalist, No. 58. 



29O THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

thority to confirm or reject nominations, yet in 
this respect also, the executive department pos- 
sesses abundant power for the protection of its 
constitutional rights. The President has power 
" to fill up all vacancies that may happen during 
the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions 
which shall expire at the end of their next ses- 
sion." As he has' absolute power of removal, he 
can select his own time for making vacancies, and 
the commissions which he shall issue will hold 
good to the last day of the expiring session, 
whereupon, in case of a rejection, another com- 
mission may be issued of like duration. Prece- 
dents for such action go back to the early days 
of the republic. Robert Smith acted as Secretary 
of the Navy during the whole period of Jefferson's 
second administration without his appointment to 
that office being confirmed by the Senate, or any 
known authority except the verbal request or per- 
mission of the President. 1 The appointment of 
Taney to be the Secretary of the Treasury, in 
which office he carried out the financial policy of 
the administration, was never confirmed by the 
Senate. Jackson did not send in the nomination 
until the last week of the session, when Taney had 
finished all that he entered the office to do. There 
are numerous precedents for the appointment and 
retention of minor officials in the face of senato- 
rial refusal to confirm the nominations. There 

1 Adams' History of the United States, Vol. III., p. 12. 



THE PRESIDENCY 29 1 

were a number of such cases during President 
Cleveland's term of office. 

The strongest and most unqualified statements 
of the powers of the presidential office come from 
experienced statesmen who have had the best oppor- 
tunity of scrutinizing its operation. John Quincy 
Adams, at a time when presidential authority was 
less developed than now, said, " It has perhaps 
never been duly remarked that, under the consti- 
tution of the United States, the powers of the 
executive department, explicitly and emphatically 
concentrated in one person, are vastly more 
extensive and complicated than those of the 
legislature." 1 Secretary Seward told a London 
Times correspondent, who was interrogating him 
as to the nature of our government, " We elect 
a king for four years, and give him absolute power 
within certain limits, which after all he can inter- 
pret for himself." 2 Quite as strong were the ex- 
pressions used by ex-President Hayes to a publicist 
who applied for information on the subject. "Prac- 
tically the President holds the nation in his hand." 3 
Hare, the leading legal authority on this subject, 
sums up the case as follows : — 

" A chief magistrate who wields the whole mili- 
tary and no inconsiderable share of the civil power 
of the state, who can incline the scale to war and 

1 Discourse on the Jubilee of the Constitution. 

2 Jennings' Republican Government in the United States, p. 36. 

3 Stevens' Sources of the Constitution, pp. 167-170. 



292 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

forbid the return of peace, whose veto will stay 
the force of legislation, who is the source of the 
enormous patronage which is the main lever in 
the politics of the United States, exercises func- 
tions which are more truly regal than those of an 
English monarch." 1 

It should be carefully noted, however, that this 
power of the presidential office does not proceed 
from its strength as an embodiment of royal pre- 
rogative as conceived by the framers of the consti- 
tution. Their expectation was that in the ordi- 
nary working of the machinery of election they 
had devised, there would be numbers of candidates 
in various states — ■" favorite sons," to use the mod- 
ern phrase. Therefore the electoral college of each 
state was to vote for two persons, one of whom 
should not be an inhabitant of that state, so that, 
at least in one instance, the vote of each state 
would be likely to "fall on characters eminent and 
generally known." 2 The Federalist speaks of this 
scheme with a complacency rare in that sombre 
treatise ; but it was a complete failure. It never 
worked according to the design, except in the 
election of Washington, when the work of the 
electoral college was really done for it in advance, 
and it had simply to register an unanimous con- 
sent. The greatness of the presidency is the work 



1 American Constitutional Law, p. 173. 

2 Madison's Journal, September 5. 



THE PRESIDENCY 293 

of the people, breaking through the constitutional 
form. 

The truth is that in the presidential office, as it 
has been constituted since Jackson's time, Amer- 
ican democracy has revived the oldest political 
institution of the race, the elective kingship. It 
is all there : the precognition of the notables and 
the tumultuous choice of the freemen, only con- 
formed to modern conditions. That the people 
have been able to accomplish this with such de- 
fective apparatus, and have been able to make 
good a principle which no other people have been 
able to reconcile with the safety of the state, indi- 
cates the highest degree of constitutional morality 
yet attained by any race. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

PARTY ORGANIZATION 

Party is as old as politics, and the opera- 
tion of party in working the machinery of gov- 
ernment is seen in all countries having free 
institutions ; but of party as an external authority, 
expressing its determinations through its own 
peculiar organs, the United States as yet offers 
to the world the only distinct example, although 
tendencies in that direction are showing them- 
selves in England. There is still, however, noth- 
ing of which the British Parliament is more 
intolerant than an assumption that there exists 
any constitution of authority exterior to its own, 
which can claim to give expression to the will of 
the people. No less keen a jealousy might have 
been expected from the Congress of the United 
States, which, according to the constitution, di- 
rectly represents both the people and their state 
governments. Assuredly nothing would have 
been more incomprehensible and astonishing to 
the framers of the constitution than to have been 
informed that a political jurisdiction would be es- 
tablished, unknown to the constitution and with- 
out warrant of law, whose determinations would 

294 



PARTY ORGANIZATION 29$ 

be recognized as entitled to delineate the policy 
of the administration and bind the proceedings of 
Congress. Such obligation, though constantly 
paltered with by faction interests and continually 
evaded by tricky politicians, is nevertheless un- 
reservedly admitted. To such an extent is this 
submission carried that it is not an uncommon 
thing for members of Congress to admit that they 
are acting under the compulsion of such obliga- 
tion against their own judgment. 1 

Although party organization asserts jurisdiction 
over the constitutional organs of government, its 
own pretensions to a representative character have 
a very slight basis. The theory of party organiza- 
tion is that its power emanates directly from the 
people, by means of a system according to which 
the party membership, at primary elections, choose 
delegates who meet to state the party principles 
and name the party candidates. In practice, few 
people besides the politicians have any share in 
the transaction. As a rule, the vote at primary 
elections is very small, and even when exceptional 

1 Mr. Gorman. — The senator from Wisconsin says that both 
parties were somewhat intimidated by the people who were the 
special advocates of this law. For one, I do not believe we can 
shirk our duty in this matter. 

Mr. Spooner. — All I said was this, and I repeat it, that both the 
political parties were committed to the principle of the civil ser- 
vice law and its maintenance. 

Mr. Gorman. — To that I agree. 

— Congressional Record, February 24, 1891, p. 3395. 



296 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

circumstances bring out a large vote, it is still 
small as compared with that polled at a regular 
election. In many cases there is hardly the pre- 
tence of an election by the party membership, but 
the politicians frankly bargain among themselves 
who shall attend the conventions and figure as 
party representatives. The total vote polled for 
the members of a national convention, which nom- 
inates the President and declares the policy to be 
pursued by the government, is but a small per- 
centage of the vote polled at a congressional 
election. 

What is still more significant is the fact that 
there appears to be no connection between the 
extent to which a constituent quality has been im- 
parted to a convention, and the force with which 
its decisions appeal to public confidence and sup- 
port. So far as the appearance of representative 
character in party organization is concerned, it is 
generally greatest when its subjection to profes- 
sional management is most complete. In an old 
party, which has acquired a valuable stock of 
traditional sentiment and popular attachment, * 
the reciprocal efforts of struggling factions have 
evolved a stringent code of regulations to prevent 
unfair advantages, and their mutual jealousies in- 
sure vigilant attention to regularity of procedure. 
A spontaneous movement, issuing from popular 
enthusiasm, is tolerant of irregularity in method. 
It welcomes without question those whose heart 



PARTY ORGANIZATION 297 

is in the cause. The convention of a new party 
has largely the character of a mass-meeting. Es- 
tablished usage requires some observance of the 
form of delegation, but practically any one of re- 
spectability and standing, who is in sympathy with 
the movement, may take part in the proceedings. 
A reform movement will eagerly cluster around a 
self-constituted leadership, while the regular politi- 
cal boss in selecting candidates must carefully re- 
spect the form of nomination by delegates from the 
people. The Committee of Seventy, appointed 
by some citizens' associations, nominated a ticket 
which swept New York City in the election of 
1894, while the Tammany ticket, regularly nomi- 
nated by a body of genuine constituent character, 
was defeated. 

Such considerations make it plain that the true 
office of party organization is that of a factor. It 
carries on a self-assumed procuration in the name 
of the people and by their acquiescence, but not by 
their desire. The appearance of a representative 
character is the result of arrangements gradually 
effected under pressure of a demand that the 
emoluments and opportunities of this business of 
factorship should be open to competition. This 
view of the case is fully confirmed by the history 
of party organization sketched in the preceding 
chapters. The occasion for it was the need of 
means of concentration so as to establish a control 
over the divided powers of government. Party 



298 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

machinery was devised under the stimulus of 
necessity and has been submitted to because there 
was no help for it. A paradoxical phrase, often 
used in regard to this very matter, puts the case 
exactly as the people regard it. It is a necessary 
evil. 

The development of party organization has been 
elaborate and extensive in keeping with the vast 
expansion of the nation and the multifarious politi- 
cal activities of our complicated system of govern- 
ment. The struggles of the people to convert the 
government to democratic uses have introduced 
complications which have greatly enlarged the 
functions of party organization and intensified 
their energy. The movement towards the mul- 
tiplication of elective offices originated in popu- 
lar revolt against class rule. The constitutional 
framework of the national government was so 
unyielding that effort was expended upon it in 
vain ; but plastic material was found in the state 
constitutions. The democratic movement which 
raised Jackson to the presidency, although baffled 
in all its designs of amending the constitution of 
the United States, has left a deep influence upon 
state constitutions. A sentiment of popular hos- 
tility to aristocratic control was the force that sus- 
tained the movement of constitutional reform, and, 
as a means of diminishing the sphere of such con- 
trol and admitting new interests to power, there 
was no expedient so effective as turning appoint- 



PARTY ORGANIZATION 299 

ive into elective offices. The powers of the gov- 
ernor were reduced by converting local agencies 
of government into elective offices. Heads of 
state departments, that had been appointed by the 
governor or by the legislature, were also cut loose 
to be filled under the form of popular election. 
Even the judiciary did not escape, and in most of 
the states the office of judge was abandoned to 
party politics by making it elective. The practi- 
cal effect of the change was to convert a system of 
responsible appointment into a system of irrespon- 
sible appointment. It is obviously impossible for 
the people to select officers for innumerable places 
except by some means of agreement and coopera- 
tion, which means is ordinarily supplied by the 
activity of the political class. It may be laid down 
as a political maxim, that whatever assigns to the 
people a power which they are naturally incapable 
of wielding takes it away from them. It may be 
argued that this principle carried to its logical 
conclusion implies that the people are unable to 
select their own rulers in any case. This is per- 
fectly true. The actual selection will be always 
made by the few, no matter how many may seem 
to participate. The only value of popular elections 
is to establish accountability to the people, but this 
rightly used is quite enough to constitute a free 
government. 

The multiplication of elective offices and the 
distribution of the responsibilities of government 



300 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

among independent authorities, dissipates account- 
ability so that practically it ceases to exist. It 
puzzles foreign observers to understand how any 
public responsibility can be enforced under such 
a system. Mr. Bryce remarks : " Will not a 
scheme, in which the executive officers are all 
independent of one another, yet not subject to 
the legislature, want every condition needed for 
harmonious and efficient action ? They obey no- 
body. They are responsible to nobody, except a 
people which only exists in concrete activity for 
one election day every two years, when it is drop- 
ping papers into the ballot-box. Such a system 
seems the negation of a system, and more akin 
to chaos." 1 The explanation of this mystery is 
that the scattered powers of government are re- 
sumed by party organization, and this concentra- 
tion of power carries with it a public responsibility 
which may be enforced. The soundness of the 
popular instinct on this point is shown by the 
indifference of voters to the personal merits of 
candidates, when moved by resentment against 
party organization. One of the peculiarities of the 
great revulsions of feeling, which have obtained 
the name of " tidal-waves," is the way in which 
they toss into prominence, grotesque nonentities 
and incapables who never could have obtained 
important office by the ordinary gradation of 
political preferment. 

1 American Commonwealth, Vol. I., p. 530. 



PARTY ORGANIZATION 301 

The interdependence of political interests is 
such that local transactions cannot be separated 
from state and national concerns. If the party 
is hurt anywhere, it feels it everywhere. 1 Needs 
of adjustment between local and general political 
interests have thus been created, which have 
gradually evolved a hierarchy of political control, 
with respective rights and privileges that are 
tenaciously insisted upon. In this respect party 
organization curiously resembles feudalism. The 
city boss and the state boss are the grand feuda- 
tories of the system. The city boss is the nexus 
of municipal administration, — a centre of control 
outside of the partitions of authority which public 
prejudice and traditional opinion insist upon in 
the formal constitution of city government. The 
boss system is enormously expensive, but so great 
is the value of concentrated authority in business 
management that one may hear it said among 
practical men of affairs that a city needs a politi- 
cal boss in order to be progressive. The fact is 
well known that it was due to authority of this 
kind that the national capital was transformed 
from an area of swamps and mud-banks into the 
beautiful city it is now. The state boss is the 

*At the New York City election of 1897, the Low movement 
confined itself to local purposes, and offered its adherents no 
candidate for the state office voted for at the same election. As 
a result, 67,677 votes that were cast for local candidates were not 
cast at all for judge of the Court of Appeals. 



302 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

natural complement of the situation produced by 
the dissolution of executive authority in state 
government. The office restores outside of the 
formal constitution what is lost inside of it — 
efficient control. In the national government no 
such dissolution having taken place, the case is 
different. There is no national boss but the 
President, and that is what the people put him 
there to be. If he does not boss the situation, he 
is a political failure, no matter what else he may 
be. 

Thus by a perfectly natural process of evolution, 
the structure and functions of party organization 
have been elaborated, so as to comprehend the 
political activity of American citizenship from the 
minutest subdivision of local government up to 
the formation of a national administration. Party 
organization selects candidates for innumerable 
offices ; it superintends the perpetual succession 
of elections ; its operation is continuous. Since 
politics in all their gradations have their connec- 
tions with trade and society, the activities of 
politics permeate the whole sphere of civic life. 

The community of interest thus established 
causes party organization to exercise a moderat- 
ing influence of immense importance. When the 
convention system was established, its direct ap- 
peal to the people, followed by numerous mass- 
meetings and floods of oratory, excited a violence 
of party feeling that horrified statesmen of the 



PARTY ORGANIZATION 303 

old school. " Here is a revolution in the habits 
and manners of the people," wrote John Quincy 
Adams in his diary. "These meetings cannot be 
multiplied in number and frequency without result- 
ing in deeper tragedies. Their manifest tendency 
is to civil war." 1 Calhoun had no doubt that 
"the appeal to force will be made whenever the 
violence of the struggle and the corruption of 
parties will no longer submit to the decision of 
the ballot-box." 2 

But history plainly shows that party spirit has 
not had any such tendency. On the contrary, 
party organization long repressed the operation of 
the forces which did indeed eventually produce 
civil war. Before the slavery question could be 
brought to the front as the decisive issue of 
national politics, an entirely new and purely sec- 
tional party had to be formed. National party 
organization held the Union together long after 
the South had become at heart a separate nation, 
from the distinct interests and purposes developed 
by slavery. As early as the forties, great religious 
denominations split into Northern and Southern 
divisions. Calhoun, in his last speech, called at- 
tention to the manner in which tie after tie was 
snapping. But still party organization continued 
to bear the strain, and it was the last bond of union 
to give way. Then war or disunion became inevi- 

1 Memoirs, Vol. X., p. 352. 

2 Calhoun's Works, Vol. I., pp. 378, 379. 



304 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

table. After the war, the powerful agency of 
party organization was again displayed in the 
rapidity with which the revolted section was re- 
incorporated into the life of the nation. 

The truth is that a remarkable nonchalance 
underlies the sound and fury of partisan politics. 
The passionate recrimination that goes on is like 
the disputes of counsel over the trial table. Back 
of it all is a substantial community of interest. 
The violence of politicians does not usually go 
higher than their lips. The antagonists of the 
stump often have a really friendly feeling for one 
another. It is not an uncommon thing for profes- 
sional politicians of opposing parties to display a 
spirit of mutual good will and helpfulness in pro- 
moting the personal political interests of one an- 
other. The extraordinary thing about American 
party politics is really their amenity. Public sen- 
timent, while permitting great license of speech, 
exacts a decorum of behavior that is surprising to 
English visitors, accustomed as they are to popu- 
lar turbulence — the howling down of speakers, 
storming of platforms, and scuffling of excited 
partisans. 1 There is in this country an immense 
business preparation for a campaign, an enormous 

1 A letter in the New York Evening Post, November 13, 1897, 
makes an interesting comparison of electioneering in the two coun- 
tries. The writer concludes that " an American public meeting is 
one of the quietest and most decorous forms of entertainment yet 
invented." 



PARTY ORGANIZATION 305 

investment in spectacular effects and stage prop- 
erties, and a prodigious display of enthusiasm, cul- 
minating in the thrilling scenes of election night ; 
but as soon as the result is fully known, it is good- 
humoredly accepted and the people eagerly return 
to their ordinary business pursuits. 



This curious circumspection that attends the 
periodical national mood of party frenzy is trace- 
able to the same moderating influence that devel- 
oped a constitutional system of party government 
in England — the succession of opportunity in en- 
joyment of the offices of government. Burke's 
expressive metaphor fits the case exactly. "The 
parties are the gamesters ; but government keeps 
the table." No matter how passionately they con- 
tend, they will take care that they do not kick over 
the table and lose the stakes. The same influence 
is seen in the way in which party spirit reacts against 
mob spirit. By its habit of consulting and flatter- 
ing all interests, party spirit may encourage mob 
spirit up to a certain point ; but when the limits of 
fair accommodation are overpassed, there is a sud- 
den change of attitude and a fierce energy is shown 
in repressing disorder. 

The true office of the elaborate apparatus used 
to work up popular excitement over party issues is 
to energize the mass of citizenship into political 
activity. Although so dissimilar in character, na- 
tional party organization fulfils a function similar 
to that indirectly accomplished in England by royal 



306 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

prerogative during the period when it was really 
massive ; but with the important difference that, 
whereas then the various classes of the population 
were fused into political community by the weight 
of royalty, party spirit now draws them together 
by ardent sympathies which elicit a copious and 
constant supply of political force. Their opera- 
tion extends far beyond the sphere of the intelli- 
gence, for they thrill and penetrate the bottom 
strata of character, — the inheritance of ancestral 
habit moulded by tribal discipline, the deposits of 
race experience throughout the ages, — bringing 
into play those deep instincts of which we are 
unconscious, but which constitute the wisest part 
of us. 

This nationalizing influence continues to pro- 
duce results of the greatest social value, for in 
coordinating the various elements of the popula- 
tion for political purposes, party organization at 
the same time tends to fuse them into one mass 
of citizenship, pervaded by a common order of ideas 
and sentiments, and actuated by the same class of 
motives. This is probably the secret of the power- 
ful solvent influence which American civilization 
exerts upon the enormous deposits of alien popu- 
lations thrown upon this country by the torrent of 
emigration. Racial and religious antipathies, which 
present the most threatening problems to countries 
governed upon parliamentary principles, melt with 
amazing rapidity in the warm flow of a party spirit 



PARTY ORGANIZATION 307 

which is constantly demanding, and is able to re- 
ward, the subordination of local and particular in- 
terests to national purposes. The extent to which 
accidents of foreign nativity or extraction are made 
use of, to constitute what is known in politics as " a 
vote," is generally regarded as the great weakness 
of American politics, but it is really a stage in the 
process of fusion. In order that "the Irish vote," 
"the German vote," " the Italian vote," etc., shall 
be recognized as such, they must display a spirit 
of mutual accommodation and enter into amicable 
relations. It is a matter of common observation 
in the politics of our great cities that a surprising 
amount of intimacy and association between peo- 
ple of different nationalities is thereby brought 
about. In the district headquarters of a party or- 
ganization, one may perchance see an Irish ward 
captain patting on the back some Italian ward 
worker who can hardly speak intelligible English, 
but whose pride and zeal in the success of his efforts 
to bring his compatriots "in line with the party" 
are blazoned upon his face. American politics 
seem able to digest and assimilate any race of the 
Aryan stock, but it fails with the negro race, so 
that where the negro vote is large enough to be a 
controlling factor, the tendency is to suppress it by 
the direct resistance of the community or else re- 
duce it to manageable dimensions by special con- 
trivance of law. 

The extensive business of political factorship, 1 



308 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

created by the peculiar circumstances of American 
politics, naturally attracts to its various employ- 
ments men of congenial aptitudes. Energy, ad- 
dress, and opportunity tell in this just as in other 
pursuits. The power exercised by the political 
class is certainly the most striking characteristic 
of American public affairs, but there is nothing 
mysterious about it. Burke gave the explanation 
long ago when he remarked that " nations are gov- 
erned by the same methods and on the same prin- 
ciples by which an individual without authority is 
often able to govern those who are his equals or 
superiors : by a knowledge of their temper and a 
judicious management of it." 1 

It is the fashion to regard American politicians 
as a peculiar class, who as individuals are addicted 
to envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness, and whose 
machinations as a body are responsible for the 
wide disagreement between the accepted theory 
and the actual practice of our politics ; but this is 
a mistaken view of the case. Whenever people 
come in contact in the struggles of life, there is 
friction. People in the same line of business, of 
whatever sort, have their feuds as well as their 
friendships, and if the public heard all that goes 
on in the business world, it would be found that 
envy, selfishness, and bickering abound there 
too. The public business being everybody's busi- 
ness, stuff which, if it concerned the transactions 

L The Present Discontents. 



PARTY ORGANIZATION- 309 

of ordinary business, would be considered as mere 
scandalous gossip and backbiting, in politics as- 
sumes the rank of public discussion and criticism, 
and the vast reverberation of the press swells the 
murmur into clamor. Intimate knowledge and 
good understanding, however, reveal an extent of 
toleration, charity, and downright generosity in 
politics that raises one's esteem for human nature. 
The consideration shown by professional politi- 
cians for the poor and unfortunate is a beautiful 
trait in their character. The relations between 
them and their constituents in many cases embrace 
sympathies far deeper and stronger than any con- 
nection, founded merely upon community of politi- 
cal ideas, could excite. 

There is really nothing peculiar in the character 
of American politicians ; but the circumstances 
which condition their activity are very peculiar. 
Their demerits are those which pertain to their 
period, and find abundant parallels in the history 
of English politics. On the other hand they have 
displayed, in meeting the peculiar exigencies of 
their situation, a readiness of invention and an 
adaptability of method which are characteristically 
American. Not even the great industrial develop- 
ment of the nation affords so striking an exhibi- 
tion of American inventive genius and faculty for 
organization as that huge, complicated mechanism 
which, in default of any provision for direct party 
control of legislative procedure, has been extended 



310 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

to every part of the government — national, state, 
and municipal — so as to reach and subject to some 
degree of public responsibility the political activi- 
ties finding expression in the various state legislat- 
ures and in Congress. Nowhere else in the world, 
at any period, has party organization had to cope 
with such enormous tasks as in this country, and 
its efficiency in dealing with them is the true 
glory of our political system. As to this, the 
testimony of so competent and unbiassed a critic 
as Mr. Bagehot may be cited. He says : " The 
Americans now extol their institutions, and so 
defraud themselves of their due praise ; but if 
they had not a genius for politics, if they had not 
a moderation in action singularly curious where 
superficial speech is so violent, if they had not a 
regard for laws such as no great people have yet 
evinced, and infinitely surpassing ours — the mul- 
tiplicity of authorities in the American constitu- 
tion would long ago have brought it to a bad end. 1 
All these characteristics are phases of that 
genius for politics of which party organization is 
the expression and the organ. The conclusion 
may be distasteful, since it is the habit of the 
times to pursue public men with calumny and 
detraction ; but it follows that when history comes 
to reckon the achievements of our age, great party 
managers will receive an appreciation very different 
from what is now accorded to them. 

1 Bagehot's English Constitution, Chap. VII. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

PARTY SUBSISTENCE 

Having so much to do, party organization pro- 
vides employment for an enormous staff of mana- 
gers, agents, and servants. Their number exceeds 
immensely the number of those connected with 
politics in any country in which unity of adminis- 
trative control is provided by the constitution. In 
England the class of professional politicians is com- 
paratively small. Mr. Bryce makes an interesting 
comparison on this point. He says that by the 
most liberal computation — one that includes the 
members of Parliament and expectant candidates ; 
editors, managers, and chief writers on leading 
newspapers ; and party agents in the various con- 
stituencies — he reached a total of 3500 in all Eng- 
land. Of their number in this country he says, " I 
can form no estimate, save that it must be counted 
by hundreds of thousands, inasmuch as it practi- 
cally includes nearly all office-holders and most 
expectants of public office." 1 This estimate, al- 
though large, is very moderate, since it includes 
besides federal office-holders the numerous officials 
holding office under state and local authority. To 

1 American Commonwealth, Chap. LVII. 
3" 



312 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

these should be added the large class of men who 
find the gains of their political activity, not in 
office-holding, but in the exercise of political in- 
fluence. The probability is that the machinery 
of control in American government requires more 
people to tend and work it than all other political 
machinery in the rest of the civilized world. 

So huge an organism necessarily requires pro- 
vision of corresponding magnitude for its sub- 
sistence. It is notorious that party demands 
possession of all the offices of government for its 
support, but only a part of its maintenance can be 
provided in this way. The public service furnishes 
pay and quarters for what may be called the office 
staff of the business of party management, and the 
compensation attached to official employment may 
be squeezed for party purposes, but the direct 
emoluments of office-holding certainly do not sus- 
tain the management nor can they supply funds in 
amounts large enough to finance the large transac- 
tions of the business. It is a matter of observation 
that as politicians get into the first r?nk in influ- 
ence and control their inclination is to seek office 
for their followers rather than for themselves. 
Often when they do hold office the expenses they 
have to assume are notoriously in excess of the 
compensation provided by law, and the real value 
of the office must lie in some advantages of po- 
sition facilitating their management of politics. 
Many of the men who are recognized chiefs of 



PARTY SUBSISTENCE 313 

party management, " the bosses," do not hold 
office at all. Indeed, this avoidance of direct of- 
ficial responsibility may almost be said to be the 
distinguishing characteristic of the boss in a large 
city. Such men must find their account in politics 
in other ways than in the emoluments of office- 
holding. 

It is also to be observed that the revenues 
required by party management are much too large 
to be raised by assessments upon office-holders or 
candidates. Although large sums are raised in 
this way, they form only what may be called the 
ordinary revenues of party organization, and are 
quite inadequate for the extraordinary expenditures 
of an important campaign. Vast sums are then 
expended in party agitation — public addresses, cir- 
culation of documents, mass-meetings, barbecues, 
picnics, and parades. Then, too, large expendi- 
tures are made in qualifying voters by getting out 
naturalization papers, or paying their taxes when 
the exercise of the franchise is so conditioned. 
Moreover, on election day the captain of every 
election district expects to be supplied with funds 
so as to be able to meet the expense of getting 
voters to the polls or to offer inducements to the 
wavering or indifferent. While it is impossible to 
get exact figures, yet the way in which money is 
poured out to carry elections shows that copious 
sources of supply are open to party managers. 

It has been the experience of other countries, 



314 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

having representative institutions, that the gratifi- 
cations which political distinction offer to people 
of means are such as to make them willing to bear 
the burden and expense of party management. 
But in such countries political activity is a depart- 
ment of the general activities of good society, and 
hence may confer a social distinction which affords 
a powerful incentive to effort, while the work re- 
quired makes only occasional demands upon the 
time and attention of those taking it up, and can 
be done under simple forms of organization. If 
American party organization meant only the exist- 
ence of such regular machinery as the congres- 
sional committee, supplemented by the organiza- 
tion in each district of a committee of citizens to 
bring out a candidate in the party interest and to 
canvass votes in his behalf, party management in 
America would then mean something like what it 
does in England. The far more extensive duties 
assumed by party organization in this country 
make it so intricate in its nature and so absorbing 
in its demands that it can be managed only by 
those who are trained to it as a business, and in 
becoming a trade politics cease to offer the induce- 
ments which in other countries commend them as a 
social duty. There may be political prominence 
so great as to compel a certain amount of social 
recognition ; but it is given with reserve, and no 
one would think of taking to party management as 
a road to social distinction. 



PARTY SUBSISTENCE 315 

There is no lack of public spirit in the American 
character. The spontaneous vigor and multi- 
tudinous variety of ecclesiastical organization, for 
which the United States is a wonder among 
nations, alone afford sufficient proof that the 
American people possess extraordinary powers of 
gratuitous voluntary effort in behalf of public in- 
terests. In this country, more perhaps than else- 
where, public service exerts an attraction upon the 
mass of society which elicits a vast amount of 
activity ; but in order to obtain a field in which to 
operate, it must as a rule avoid an occupation which 
established conditions reserve so exclusively to 
professional control as party management. The 
public spirit, which under simpler forms of govern- 
ment includes in its operation the direction and 
maintenance of party activity, in the United States 
confines itself to the administration of charities, to 
unpaid service upon the directories of public insti- 
tutions, or to service upon public commissions 
whose duties and objects put them out of the 
sphere of partisanship, or else are shielded by a 
consensus of public opinion which the politicians 
feel compelled to respect. To service of such 
character public esteem attaches, and to mark this 
it is the practice of common speech to designate 
such employment as " outside of politics." Dis- 
tinctions of this sort have impressed a narrow 
meaning on the word "politics." In Europe the 
politicians are those who in one capacity or another 



316 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

are engaged in directing the administration of pub- 
lic affairs. In the United States the politicians 
are. the class of men who attend to the working of 
party machinery. If it is desired to indicate that 
the reputation of a public man has been gained in 
service to administration rather than in party man- 
agement, the word "politician " is avoided, and he is 
spoken of as a statesman. The late Mr. Tilden 
was spoken of as both a great politician and a great 
statesman, because of his eminence in both respects. 

Motives of public spirit and honorable ambition 
doubtless enter into the direct work of party 
management to a far greater extent than is gen- 
erally supposed, and their influence retains in 
party service capacities which would command far 
larger remuneration if exercised in other employ- 
ments ; but nevertheless politics are regarded as a 
business, and as a rule those who follow it expect 
to live by it. The political class must in one way 
or another extract from their occupation the re- 
muneration of their labor as well as obtain funds 
for party undertakings, and in so doing they have 
to encounter a state of popular feeling disposed to 
grudge reward and envy acquisition. This being 
so, it is the more inconceivable that the attach- 
ment of the people to their party principles should 
prompt the contribution of such enormous sums of 
money as are handled by the politicians without 
account or audit. 

The matter does not become comprehensible 



PARTY SUBSISTENCE 3 1 7 

until the nature of the opportunities which accom- 
pany the power of party organization over the con- 
duct of government is considered. It is then easy 
to see that a potentate whose sway extends over 
the administration of state governments and in- 
numerable subordinate governments, controlling 
franchises of immense value and extent, and able 
to affect the welfare of a myriad of wealthy inter- 
ests, will not be without an ample retinue of cour- 
tiers, nor lack obliging friends willing to relieve his 
necessities by princely gifts, and thus enjoy his 
favor. Party organization is able to command 
more generous benevolences from rich subjects 
than were ever the Tudor kings. Thus in indirect 
ways party organization is able to give its chiefs 
rich opportunities of money-making, and is able 
to levy enormous sums from wealthy interests for 
political purposes. 

Public spirit, party attachment, and personal good 
will towards party managers in numerous cases con- 
spire to elicit contributions which are very large 
in the aggregate, but it is unlikely that the supply 
would be so copious were it not that extensive 
interests find it to their advantage to lay party 
organization under obligations. The business cal- 
culation of the system is shown by the non-partisan 
spirit of its beneficence. In testifying before a 
committee of the United States Senate, the pres- 
ident of the American Sugar Refining Company 
said, " It is my impression that wherever there is 



318 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

a dominant party, wherever the majority is large, 
that is the party that gets the contribution, be- 
cause that is the party which controls the local 
matters." He explained that this system of con- 
tribution was carried on because the company had 
large interests which needed protection, and he 
added, " Every individual and corporation and 
firm, trust, or whatever you call it, does these 
things, and we do them." 2 

But even this source of revenue must be inade- 
quate to the needs of party organization. It is a 
tribute to an established control, but it neither 
creates nor maintains that control. The main re- 
source of party management — the working capital 
of the business — is the negotiation of the value of 
its good will that in one way or another is being 
constantly carried on. Franchises to the use of 
streets and highways, the grant of rights of way, 
concessions of charter privileges, legislative sanc- 
tions to corporate undertakings, lucrative usufructs 
of various species of public wealth, real estate de- 
velopment in connection with municipal improve- 
ments, etc., are fields of investment for many 
millions of private capital, an obvious policy with 
whose representatives is to confederate their in- 
terests with political influence. 2 Probably more 

1 Senate Report, No. 606, Fifty-third Congress, second session, 
pp. 351, 352. 

2 The financial statement of Berlin for 1893-1894 showed that 
the profits from the city gas and water-works and revenues from 



PARTY SUBSISTENCE 319 

money is lost than is made in politics, but when, 
as is sometimes the case, a high degree of business 
capacity is united with great political influence, a 
splendid fortune may be accumulated by cultivat- 
ing the opportunities of a political career. 

This connection of business opportunity with 
political position is at the bottom of many of the 
fierce faction fights that go on inside of party 
organization. They usually originate in conflicts 
over the apportionment of respective privileges in 
the adjustment of party interests, and are in their 
nature essentially like the hostilities that some- 
times break out among competitive interests in the 
business world, lasting until the strength and re- 
sources of rival interests are thoroughly tested, 
when the stage of business combination is reached. 
In the same way political interests measure 
strength in the primary elections, and then reach 
an adjustment in accordance with the develop- 
ments. Thus it so often comes about that fac- 
tions, which at one time seem bent on tearing 
each other to pieces, may at another time be 
seen snuggled together cheek by jowl. These 
adjustments of interest are sometimes entered 

franchises amounted to more than $5,000,000 a year. With com- 
paratively small exception, such sources of revenue are in this 
country exploited on private account. The enormous increase in 
the value of street railway franchises, attending the introduction of 
electric power, went nearly all to the enrichment of private interests 
able to enlist the needful amount of political influence, which of 
course was duly rewarded, 



320 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

into under written covenants as formal as in regu- 
lar business negotiation. Of course such instru- 
ments rarely see the light of day, for even faction 
fury is slow to commit such an imprudence, yet 
such a thing has happened. A quarrel of Penn- 
sylvania factions made public a remarkable draught 
of a treaty between state and local political inter- 
ests, the preamble of which set forth that it was 
for " mutual political, and business advantage." 1 

The process will be misunderstood if it is re- 
garded as altogether mere venality. Bargain and 
sale of legislation and downright blackmail go on 
to a large extent, but such abuse of trust always 
bears the distinct brand of corruption. The politi- 
cal class, like every class of business men, includes 
great variety of talent and character. Vulgar 
cheats and ordinary rogues get into politics and 
use their opportunities for their own pelf with as 
little regard for the interests of their party as they 
dare reveal. This class of politicians sometimes 
invade city councils and state legislatures to such 
an extent as to stamp those bodies with their char- 
acter. Indeed, it may be said to be the rule that 
lobby influence, which within its legitimate field of 
advocacy is a valuable and a really necessary ad- 
junct of legislation, is compelled to assume a cor- 
rupt character, and it must select for its principal 
service agents skilled in systematic bribery. It 
is also true that blackmail purposes inspire many 

1 ThQ Pittsburgh newspapers of March 16, 1896. 



PARTY SUBSISTENCE 32 1 

legislative proposals, and operate to a vast extent 
under cover of the police power and the punishment 
of misdemeanors. The maximum of the latter 
species of corruption was probably reached under 
the bi-partisan police administration of New York 
City, when the responsibility was divided between 
the two parties, and was the full risk of neither. 
But such practices are regarded as antagonistic to 
party interests, and the tendency of party manage- 
ment is to go as far as its strength permits in 
stopping them. They excite resentments and 
accumulate odium, which injure the party and 
at times provoke popular revolts. The political 
consequences of the disclosures made by the 
Lexow committee are still fresh in public recol- 
lection. Moreover, the revenues of downright 
venality and blackmail are personal plunder and 
probably yield little to party resources. In re- 
straining such abuses, party managers are hindered 
by the fact that they can retain command only on 
condition of service to the interests in possession 
of the field. For every boss in power, there are 
plenty of would-be bosses, and his success in main- 
taining his position is contingent upon his ability 
to satisfy inexorable conditions of efficiency. The 
baser sort of politicians are generally dexterous in 
securing to themselves a certain amount of influ- 
ence, so that they are in a position to compel rec- 
ognition and secure toleration of their practices 
unless carried to excesses which plainly jeopard 



322 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

party interests. Even then the task of curbing 
them is difficult and dangerous, owing to a state 
of public sentiment which fosters a spirit of insub- 
ordination. The traditional spirit of hostility to 
all regular party organization is so strong that the 
appearance of a breach invites a raid of forces col- 
lected from all quarters for the special attack. 
There is always a great risk that the enforcement 
of too strict a discipline may provoke a mutiny in 
the camp which will furnish to some casual aggre- 
gate of opposition the services of a band of experts 
to give force and direction to the assault. The pro- 
fessional gambler, John Morrissey, once effected 
a political revolution in New York City by going 
over to the opposition in his rage at pretensions on 
the part of the municipal administration which he 
regarded as being rather too high and supercilious 
to be endured. 

The close association of partisanship with cor- 
ruption in our political system is the result of 
circumstances, not of affinity. They are really 
antagonistic principles. Partisanship tends to es- 
tablish a connection based upon an avowed public 
obligation, while corruption consults private and 
individual interests which secrete themselves from 
view and avoid accountability of any kind. The 
weakness of party organization is the opportunity 
of corruption. Party organization undertakes to 
supervise the conduct of legislative bodies only 
so far as party interests distinctly require, and it 



PARTY SUBSISTENCE 323 

has no warrant to go further. This permits a 
latitude of action in regard to general legislation 
which abounds in pernicious reactions throughout 
the business world. In proportion as party control 
is strengthened, a counteracting force is brought 
to bear. The way in which, in some of the large 
states, the development of the state boss has syste- 
matized the relations between corporations and 
politics, has therefore caused a marked improve- 
ment in legislative behavior. The boss, being 
supplied with resources which enable him to 
finance the details of party management, — the 
running of primaries, the setting-up of delegates, 
the selection of candidates, etc., — is in a position 
to interpose a party obligation between legislative 
marauders and their prey. 

The cost of party subsistence cannot be com- 
puted. Exact data are unattainable. Although 
various estimates have been made, they are all 
worthless and are all probably below the mark, 
although some of them mount into many mill- 
ions of dollars. It is quite probable that party 
organization costs more than any one of the 
regular departments of government. It is a 
fond delusion of the people that our republican 
form of government is less expensive than the 
monarchical forms which obtain in Europe. The 
truth is that ours is the costliest government in 
the world, and none save a nation so industrious 
and energetic, and which possesses such great nat- 



324 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

ural resources as our own, could possibly sustain 
it. No other nation in the world is rich enough 
for the political experimentation which the United 
States is carrying on ; but when the end crowns 
the work, its cost may be found to have been 
small in comparison with the value of the recom- 
pense. 



CHAPTER XXV 

PARTY EFFICIENCY 

Since it lacks a true representative character, 
and its concern in public affairs is at bottom a 
business pursuit carried on for personal gain and 
emolument, the service which party performs in 
executing the behests of public opinion and in 
carrying on political development must be an 
incident of its ordinary activity. That this is the 
case all observation confirms. It is a common 
remark, that all political parties seem to care for 
is the possession of the offices, and that they are 
willing to shift and change their principles as much 
as need be in order to win. Talleyrand's cynical 
remark, that a man who is always true to his party 
must be prepared to change his principles fre- 
quently, is peculiarly applicable to American poli- 
tics. Party effrontery is carried to such a pitch 
that in one state a party may take up and energeti- 
cally advocate doctrines, which the same party in 
another state will be just as actively engaged in 
denouncing and opposing. So accommodating is 
party policy in this respect, that state political 
campaigns have become tests of the public dispo- 
sition, and the results of such experimentation are 

325 



326 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

studied for data upon which to base plans for the 
grand quadrennial adventure of the presidential 
election. 

It therefore appears that wherein party serves 
public interests is in the catering to public wants 
and desires which every party organization must 
carry on to get and hold business in competition 
with opposing party organization. Hence party 
is obliged to consult public opinion and assume 
engagements to be carried out in the administra- 
tion of public affairs. American politics are not 
peculiar in this respect, for that is the way in 
which party discharges its function wherever it 
carries on the government. What is peculiar 
to American politics is that party organization is 
so situated that it cannot negotiate as a principal, 
but as a go-between. Unlike an English party, 
it cannot itself formulate measures, direct the 
course of legislation, and assume the direct re- 
sponsibility of administration. All that it can do 
is to certify the political complexion of candidates, 
leaving it to be inferred that their common purpose 
will effect such unity of action as will control leg- 
islation and direct administration in accordance 
with party professions. The peculiarities of Amer- 
ican party government are all due to this separation 
of party management from direct and immediate 
responsibility for the administration of govern- 
ment. Party organization is compelled to act 
through executive and legislative deputies, who, 



PARTY EFFICIENCY 32 7 

while always far from disavowing their party 
obligations, are quite free to use their own dis- 
cretion as to the way in which they shall interpret 
and fulfil the party pledges. Meanwhile they 
are shielded, by the constitutional partitions of 
privilege and distributions of authority, from any 
direct and specific responsibility for delay or fail- 
ure in coming to an agreement for the accomplish- 
ment of party purposes. Authority being divided, 
responsibility is uncertain and confused, and the 
accountability of the government to the people is 
not at all definite or precise. When a party meets 
with disaster at the polls, every one may form his 
own opinion as to the cause. It is purely a matter 
of speculation. The situation of affairs is one 
which was accurately foretold in The Federalist. 
" It is often impossible," said Hamilton, "amidst 
mutual accusations, to determine on whom the 
blame or the punishment of a pernicious measure, 
or series of pernicious measures, ought really to 
fall. It is shifted from one to another with so 
much dexterity, and under such plausible appear- 
ances, that the public opinion is left in suspense 
about the real author. The circumstances which 
may have led to any national miscarriage or mis- 
fortune are sometimes so complicated that where 
there are a number of actors who may have had 
different degrees and kinds of agency, though we 
may clearly see upon the whole that there has been 
mismanagement, yet it may be impracticable to 



328 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

pronounce to whose account the evil which may- 
have been incurred is truly chargeable." 1 

As a natural consequence of the detached and 
subordinate position of party organization in the 
conduct of the government, public opinion is not 
concentrated upon its acts with steady scrutiny 
and vigilant supervision. The activity of party is 
largely concerned with details of its own business 
management, not possessing much interest for the 
mass of the people who have their own affairs to 
attend to. Its contentions are largely personal 
squabbles, whose political results may be very im- 
portant, but which do not themselves present 
political issues. They are like the intrigues which 
used to go on among the English gentry, over court 
honors and official emoluments, in the Georgian era 
of English politics, the mass of the electorate but 
dimly comprehending what was going on and regard- 
ing the strife with disgust and aversion, although 
quickly roused to activity by issues appealing to 
their political instincts. The true public opinion 
of the nation is ordinarily in a state of suspense. 
The minds of people are preoccupied by too many 
interests to attend closely to the transactions of 
the politicians, and not until the issue is thrust 
upon the public in a definite form by some press- 
ing emergency is the genuine expression of public 
opinion evoked. Meanwhile the political opinion 
with which party organization is concerned, and to 

1 The Federalist, No. 70. 



PARTY EFFICIENCY 329 

which it defers, is that with which it comes in 
contact in soliciting business. The acrid and fret- 
ting humors of the body politic exert a more direct 
and active influence upon party behavior than the 
judgment and intelligence of the nation, because 
elements of unrest and dissatisfaction are im- 
portunate in their demands and therefore receive 
attention, while social interests of incomparably 
greater magnitude are ignored. 

The readiness with which party organization 
lends itself to the service of temporary manias 
and recognized delusions proceeds from an in- 
stinct of self-preservation. Everywhere the ins 
are menaced by the activity of the outs, prompt 
to seize upon any whim, passion, or prejudice, no 
matter how foolish or noxious, if it can be turned 
to present account. Party organization, therefore, 
exploits outbreaks of popular folly and knavery, 
and caters to the prejudices of ignorance and 
fanaticism in a way that invests them with facti- 
tious importance, and confers upon them inordinate 
legislative influence. This feature of American 
politics, more than any other, causes the national 
character to be misunderstood, and the worth of 
democratic institutions to be undervalued. It is 
inferred that public opinion in this country is sub- 
ject to periodical hallucinations, that there is a 
popular contempt of authority, and a frequent re- 
currence of reckless desires to try over again the 
old failures, heedless of the abundant instructions 



330 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

of history and the warnings of our own national 
experience. This is a mistake. Folly does not 
more abound, but it is magnified in force and 
effect by the peculiar conditions of American poli- 
tics. American citizenship is probably superior in 
average intelligence to that of any other country. 
The public press, although considerate of the value 
of party good will to an extent that unfits it for 
fairly representing public opinion, must neverthe- 
less keep that in view, since it caters to the public 
at large, and not merely to the fraction which busies 
itself with politics ; and it is well known that the 
voice of the press is different from the voice of 
party on questions of public policy. Sanity and 
conservatism prevail in the tone of the press, 
even when party organization is most supple and 
accommodating to the folly of the hour. 

Party organization not being directly burdened 
by the difficulties and necessities of government 
feels at liberty to court public opinion in all its 
vagaries. Great art is employed in framing plat- 
forms so as to be susceptible to various interpreta- 
tions. Concerning issues which are settled, party 
speaks in a clear, sonorous voice. But on new 
issues it mumbles and quibbles. Subdivisions of 
the party organization make such professions as 
will pay the best in their respective fields of ac- 
tivity. If the issue cannot be dodged, straddling 
may be resorted to. Declarations really incongru- 
ous in their nature are coupled, and their inconsist- 



PARTY EFFICIENCY 33 1 

ency is cloaked by rhetorical artifice. Sometimes 
such expedients are employed as making the plat- 
form lean one way and putting on it a candidate 
who leans the other way, or candidates represent- 
ing opposing ideas and tendencies are put upon 
the same ticket. Such practices are results of 
the ordinary instincts of party in all countries, and 
obtain such monstrous growth in America because 
of extraordinarily favorable conditions. Party never 
commits itself to any new undertaking until it has 
to. In England there must be a long period of 
agitation and education of public sentiment before 
a new issue is raised to the rank of what is known 
as a cabinet question, but when that time arrives, 
party is in a position to enter into exact and specific 
engagements as to the disposition which will be made 
of it. In this country the only way in which party 
can be forced into such a position is through the 
exigencies of the national administration. What- 
ever may be the policy then adopted, it puts upon 
party the necessity of acquiescence or dissent in a 
way that requires a categorical response to the 
demands of public opinion. 

In the discharge of this function national party 
organization claims and exercises supreme jurisdic- 
tion. When it reaches its decision, all indulgence 
of local heterodoxy disappears and is succeeded by 
a ferocious intolerance. State and local party lead- 
ers must submit on penalty of excommunication. 
The coercive force which party organization then 



332 THE ORGANS OF GOVERNMENT 

develops was strikingly manifested by the way in 
which the Democratic platform of 1896 was forced 
upon dissenting state party organizations. Some, 
which had adopted platforms antagonistic to the 
platform of the national party, were compelled to 
meet and eat their words. It is the established 
principle of American politics that fidelity to the 
national platform is the crucial test of party ortho- 
doxy. Hence national issues are the controlling 
force in politics. Attempting to reform state or 
local politics, while ignoring national politics, is 
like expecting to accomplish a local purification of 
the atmosphere by palisading a patch of ground 
in a swamp. A little may be done, but not much. 
It follows that, in this country, — as was the case 
in England, — the effectual purification of our poli- 
tics will begin with national politics and will spread 
from them to local politics. 

The pliable and time-serving disposition of party, 
which is the natural consequence of its own anx- 
ious calculation of its business interests, prepares 
for it tremendous reverses. It becomes committed 
to methods of administration and courses of policy 
inimical to the public interest, so that there comes 
a time when genuine public opinion is roused to 
action with a vigor which nothing can withstand. 
The shelters of falsehood and the refuges of deceit 
are swept away, as by the blast of a hurricane, and 
the discomfited party managers lie choking and 
dumfounded in the dust and the wreckage. The 



PARTY EFFICIENCY 333 

readiness of the people to treat their great national 
parties in this way must eventually beat those par- 
ties into serviceable tools of government or break 
them up to make room for better material. The 
situation confronts political leaders with problems 
of party control and discipline, whose solution tends 
to improve the apparatus of government. The 
results of this tendency are already very plainly 
marked in the improvement of the House of Rep- 
resentatives ; but far more extensive changes must 
take place in all the organs of government before 
the rule of public opinion is definitely established. 
The present inadequacy of party organization for 
a true representation of public opinion is so exas- 
perating to impatient reformers that they would 
like to shatter it to bits ; but that is not the way to 
better the state of affairs. Party rises to new 
occasions by consulting its own interests. This 
consultative faculty in party organization, mis- 
chievous as seems to be its irregular and irre- 
sponsible operation, is that which sustains political 
development, and eventually it will perfect the 
democratic type of government. 



PART IV 

TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF AMER- 
ICAN POLITICS 



CHAPTER XXVI 

POLITICAL IDEAS OF OUR TIMES 

In attempting to forecast the future of our poli- 
tics, the ideas of our times must first be consid- 
ered, since ideas are the sap from which institu- 
tions obtain their growth. Examination discloses 
the remarkable fact that there is as yet little change 
in political ideas. The doctrine of a distribution of 
authority, so that the various branches of the gov- 
ernment shall check and balance one another to 
protect the public welfare, still possesses the public 
mind. Although the working of the constitution 
has undergone profound change, the theory has re- 
mained almost intact. That the constitution does 
not work well in practice is freely admitted ; but 
of course that is not its fault. The constitutional 
ideal is noble; but the politicians are vile. If only 
the checks could be made more effective, if only a 
just balance of power could be established beyond 

334 



POLITICAL IDEAS OF OUR TIMES 335 

the strength of the politicians to disarrange, — or, 
above all, if some barriers could be erected, so 
tight and strong as to shut the politicians out 
altogether, — the constitution would work per- 
fectly. Therefore, more checks upon the abuse 
of power; more contrivances to baffle the politi- 
cians, whose machinations pervert the constitution 
and corrupt the government ! 

These ideas are products of the Whig theory of 
government. They abound in the voluminous re- 
form literature of the eighteenth century, when 
England, too, was under a system of government 
in which authority was distributed and responsibil- 
ity confused, and the resultant corruption tormented 
the conscience of the nation. In Macaulay's brill- 
iant essays, 1 Trevelyan's fine work on the "Early 
History of Charles James Fox," and in Lecky's 
great "History of England in the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury " we have vivid pictures and abundant details 
of the state of politics in that age. As Burke re- 
marked, " Every age has its own manners, and its 
politics dependent upon them." There are many 
differences between the politics of England in the 
eighteenth century and the politics of the United 
States in the nineteenth century; but such is the 
fundamental identity in the cause of the disease 
that it is impossible to read any description of 
English politics in that age without recognizing 

1 In particular, those on Horace Walpole and The Earl of 
Chatham. 



336 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

traits of American politics of the present day. On 
the other hand, so great a change has taken place in 
English politics that men of this generation in that 
country can hardly imagine such a state of affairs 
as existed in the past. Mr. Trevelyan, himself 
an English statesman of high rank, says, " We, 
who look upon politics as a barren career by 
which few people hope to make money and none 
to save it, and who would expect a poet to found 
a family as soon as a prime minister, can with 
difficulty form a just conception of a period when 
people entered Parliament, not because they were 
rich, but because they wanted to be rich, and when 
it was more profitable to be a member of a Cabinet 
than a partner in a brewery." His American read- 
ers have no difficulty in forming such a conception : 
the difficulty with them is to conceive of a state 
of politics in which private gain is not the main- 
spring of activity. The political characteristics 
which Mr. Trevelyan locates in the past are famil- 
iar features of the present in this country. What 
observations could be more commonplace than such 
as these ? The legislative party hack " cared noth- 
ing whatever for the disapproval of any one outside 
the House . . . who did not happen to be a free- 
man (voter) in his own borough ; and among those 
with whom he lived, and whose esteem he valued, 
public employment was looked upon as a sort of 
personalty of which everybody had a clear right 
to scrape together as much as he could without 



POLITICAL IDEAS OF OUR TIMES 337 

inquiring whether the particular post he coveted 
ought to exist at all, or whether he himself was 
the proper man to hold it." In deciding contested 
elections " even exceptionally high-minded men 
were not ashamed of allowing that they had voted 
on party grounds ; and an appeal to any other 
motive would have been scouted by the lower class 
of parliamentary tacticians as clap-trap." Talk 
about disinterestedness inspired disgust. Lord 
Shelburne, when a young man, once made a re- 
mark to Henry Fox to the effect that gentlemen 
of independent position, in their political conduct, 
should act as the trustees of public interests. The 
veteran bade him get "rid of such puerile notions" 
and push for the offices if he wanted to get on in 
politics. Aptitude for cabal and intrigue rather 
than capacity for the administration of public af- 
fairs was the source of political influence. "Power 
went to such as had the strength to seize and hold 
it." There was "a profound distrust of public 
men." 1 

During this stage of English politics, as now in 
this country, the attitude respectively of literature 
and politics, which should be as reciprocal as 
thought and action, was characterized on the one 
side by disgust and aversion ; on the other by 
contempt. The tone of newspaper comment was 
one of calumny and abuse. Serious criticism must 

1 Trevelyan's Early History of Charles James Fox, Chap. III. 
z 



338 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

have definite grounds ; when discussion of responsi- 
bility must proceed by guess-work and inference, it 
inevitably degenerates into slander, and journalism 
so circumstanced is prone to develop levity, reck- 
lessness, and sensationalism as its prevailing char- 
acteristics. 

In respectable literature, the tone of thought was 
pessimistic. Browne's " Estimate of the Manners 
and Principles of the Times," which appeared in 
1757 and had a wide popularity, argued that virtue 
was rotting out of the English stock from the 
development of a commercial spirit, which was 
corroding patriotism and all the moral elements 
that are the true sources of national greatness. 
He eloquently insisted that no increase of material 
resources could compensate for the moral deterio- 
ration which had come upon the English people. 
This once famous treatise is now preserved from 
oblivion only by casual references to it made by 
Burke and Macaulay ; but the melancholy which 
clouded the thought of the age produced a durable 
literary monument in Samuel Johnson's noble poem 
on " The Vanity of Human Wishes." All its politi- 
cal allusions are scornful. 

"Through freedom's sons no more remonstrance rings, 
Degrading nobles and controlling kings ; 
Our supple tribes repress their patriot throats 
And ask no questions but the price of votes ; 
With weekly libels and septennial ale, 
Their wish is full to riot and to rail." 



POLITICAL IDEAS OF OUR TIMES 339 

The deceits of the world and the general de- 
pravity of mankind present a scene of gloom which 
no ray of hope illumines. The only peace for the 
soul is in resignation. 

" Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, 
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate ? 
Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise, 
No cries evoke the mercies of the skies ? 
Inquirer cease ; petitions yet remain 
Which heaven may hear, nor deem religion vain. 
Still raise for good the supplicating voice, 
But leave to heaven the measure and the choice." 

Then as now the existence of corruption was the 
theme of an insincere party recrimination. Says 
Macaulay : " The outs were constantly talking in 
magnificent language about tyranny, corruption, 
wicked ministers, servile courtiers, the liberty of 
Englishmen, the great charter, the rights for which 
the fathers bled. . . . They excited a vague crav- 
ing for change by which they profited for a single 
moment, and of which, as they well deserved, they 
were soon the victims." Even in particular details 
there are striking resemblances of practical politics 
between that age and our own. " The undertakers " 
who figured prominently in the government of Ire- 
land had political functions like those of our 
bosses. Mr. Lecky describes them as great Irish 
borough owners " who, in consideration of a large 
share of the patronage of the crown, ' undertook ' 
to carry the king's business through (the Irish) 



340 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

Parliament." In other words, the method was that 
of boss rule founded on the spoils system. Mr. 
Lecky remarks that " more corruption was em- 
ployed to overturn their ascendency than had ever 
been required to maintain it," and he thinks that 
"the formation of a connected influence . . . bind- 
ing many isolated and individual interests into a 
coherent and powerful organization, was a real step 
towards parliamentary government." 1 

Disgust and irritation at the degradation and 
corruption of politics produced phases of public 
sentiment like those with which we are familiar. 
Non-partisanship was continually preached. Hon- 
est men should " enter into an association for the 
support of one another against the endeavors of 
those whom they ought to look upon as their com- 
mon enemies, whatsoever side they may belong to. 
Were there such an honest body of neutral forces, 
we should never see the worst of men in the great 
figures of life, because they are useful to a party ; 
nor the best unregarded because they are above 
practising those methods which would be grateful 
to their factions. We should then single every 
criminal out of the herd and hunt him down, how- 
ever formidable and overgrown he might appear." 
This is not an extract from a recent appeal to 
the public in behalf of the formation of good gov- 



1 Lecky's History of England, Vol. II., p. 443 ; Vol. IV., pp. 
383-384. 



POLITICAL IDEAS OF OUR TIMES 34 1 

ernment clubs, but is an extract from Addison, in 
the Spectator, No. 125, Tuesday, July 24, 171 1. 

A memorable experiment of this sort was made. 
The revolt against Walpole was a magnificent inde- 
pendent movement. Whigs and Tories coalesced 
to overthrow corruption. All the leading men of 
letters supported the movement. Macaulay said, 
" The downfall of Walpole was to be the beginning 
of a political millennium ; and every enthusiast 
had figured to himself that millennium according 
to his own wishes." Akenside's best poem was 
called forth by this movement, and, expatiating 
upon what was to be expected from the overthrow 
of the great master of corruption, he exclaimed : — 

" See private life by wisest arts reclaimed, 
See ardent youth to noblest manners framed." 

The victory of the Patriots, as they were called, 
was not only complete, but the man who was 
raised to power in Walpole's place realized in his 
conduct their professions of contempt for Wal- 
pole's methods. Carteret despised office-monger- 
ing and would have nothing to do with it. He 
neglected, says Macaulay, "all those means by 
which the power of Walpole had been created 
and maintained." Chief-Justice Willes once went 
to him to beg some office for a friend. Carteret 
replied that he was too much occupied with Con- 
tinental politics to think about the disposal of 
places and benefices. "You may rely on it, then," 



342 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

said the justice, "that people who want places and 
benefices will go to those who have more leisure." x 
The prediction was fulfilled. Carteret's parliamen- 
tary support fell away, and before long he had to 
retire from an office in which he could not sustain 
himself. With Walpole's downfall had disappeared 
the sole point of policy on which the Patriots were 
united. To form an efficient administration, party 
connection had to be established, and for this pur- 
pose the usual arts of political management were 
found necessary. The nation soon found that a 
change of men had made no change of method. 
The popular disgust was intense. The very name 
of Patriot became a by-word. Samuel Johnson 
was so completely cured of enthusiasm that he 
declared that patriotism was the last refuge of a 
scoundrel. 

Still another phase of popular sentiment in our 
own times that has its prototype in English poli- 
tics of the eighteenth century is that which may 
be described as the Messianic hope of politics — 
expectation of the advent of some strong deliverer. 
The ideal president or governor who rises superior 
to party, and calls all good citizens to his support, is 
Bolingbroke's " Patriot King " in republican dress. 
Although the political philosophy of Bolingbroke 
is long since obsolete, it powerfully impressed the 
thought of his age and was in high repute with the 
fathers of the republic. There was nothing servile 

1 Macaulay's Essay on Horace "Walpole. 



POLITICAL IDEAS OF OUR TIMES 343 

in Bolingbroke's attitude towards kingship. He 
ridiculed the idea that a king ruled by divine right, 
and, laying down the principle that " the ultimate 
end of all governments is the good of the people," 
he upheld monarchy as the most feasible system 
by which social order might be preserved and 
civil liberty protected. The great advantage which 
monarchical government possessed over every other 
kind of government was its power of reform by the 
accession of a patriot king. " A corrupt common- 
wealth remains without remedy, though all the 
orders and forms of it subsist ; a free monarchical 
government cannot remain absolutely so, so long 
as the orders and forms of the constitution sub- 
sist." He based this opinion on the ground that 
no matter how bad public men may have become, 
the king in the normal exercise of his sovereignty 
can elevate the standard of public service so that 
every part of the constitution will experience a 
purgation which will restore it to its proper func- 
tions. " By rendering public virtue and real capa- 
city the sole means of acquiring any degree of 
power or profit in the state, he will set the pas- 
sions of their hearts on the side of liberty and 
good government." The essential thing was to 
uproot partisanship. "To espouse no party, but 
to govern like the common father of his people, is 
so essential to the character of a patriot king that 
he who does otherwise forfeits the title. . . . In- 
stead of abetting the divisions of his people, he 



344 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

will endeavor to unite them and to be himself the 
centre of their union ; instead of putting himself 
at the head of one party in order to govern his 
people, he will put himself at the head of his peo- 
ple in order to govern, or more properly to sub- 
due, all parties." 

This was the theory which produced George III. 
In his private life he exactly fulfilled the popular 
ideal of the good ruler. In an age when fashion- 
able society was recklessly dissolute, he was chaste 
in his conduct, temperate in his diet, and simple in 
his manners. While irreligion abounded, he kept 
a virtuous home whose days, beginning at dawn 
with family prayer, were passed in laborious 
performance of duty. He modelled his political 
conduct precisely in accord with Bolingbroke's 
instructions. Writing of the beginning of his 
reign, Macaulay says : " The watchwords of the 
new government were prerogative and purity. 
The sovereign was no longer to be a puppet in 
the hands of any subject or combinations of sub- 
jects. . . . The system of bribery which had 
grown up during the late reigns was to cease." 
Britain was to be freed from corruption and oli- 
garchical cabals. But in separating himself from 
existing parties, he still had to secure to himself 
legislative support, and this practically meant the 
organization of a personal faction. " Thus sprang 
into existence and into note," Macaulay says, "a 
reptile species of politicians never before and 



POLITICAL IDEAS OF OUR TIMES 34$ 

never since known in our country." 1 They were 
known as " The King's Friends." By their aid the 
king was temporarily able to overthrow party gov- 
ernment. As a result, corruption soon abounded 
more than ever before, and every evil in the state 
was aggravated. In wrecking party discipline and 
control, he dissolved restraint upon faction vio- 
lence and brought on an anarchic condition of 
politics which menaced all social interests. 

Burke's famous " Thoughts on the Cause of the 
Present Discontents," written in. 1770, made a 
diagnosis of the malady from which politics were 
then suffering ; and since our government has pre- 
served the essential characteristics of the English 
constitution of that period, that diagnosis, in all its 
general observations, is still pertinent to the con- 
dition of American politics. Then as now it was 
the popular disposition to account for evils by the 
predominance in administration of some obnoxious 
person. Lord Bute was then the target of ob- 
loquy. Burke disdained to join in the clamor, re- 
marking that, " where there is a regular scheme of 
operations carried on, it is the system, and not any 
individual person who acts in it, that is truly 
dangerous." He went directly to the source of 
the disease by pointing out that it arose from the 
separation between administration and responsi- 
bility. There was a double ministry : the one a 
sham set up before the public ; while the real 

1 Essay on The Earl of Chatham. 



346 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

power of administration was controlled by a cabal 
working behind the scenes. The interests in con- 
trol behind the scenes " contrived to form in the 
outward administration two parties at least, which, 
whilst they are tearing one another to pieces, are 
both competitors for the favor and protection of 
the cabal ; and by their emulation contribute to 
throw everything more and more, into the hands 
of the interior managers." The principle of the 
double ministry is still in full force in American 
politics. Back of the apparent administration 
stands the political ring, and the powers of gov- 
ernment are wielded by irresponsible managers 
behind the scenes. Burke made an observation, 
whose justness is strikingly illustrated by the way 
in which every now and then in our politics the 
people in a frenzy of rage crush the boss's candi- 
date while the boss remains, when he said that 
" they have so contrived matters that the people 
have a greater hatred to the subordinate instru- 
ment than to the principal movers." 

Speaking of the evils caused by the lack of 
direct responsibility for the management of public 
affairs, Burke said that it " not only strikes a palsy 
into every nerve of our free constitution, but in 
the same degree benumbs and stupefies the whole 
executive power ; rendering government in "all its 
grand operations languid, uncertain, ineffective ; 
making ministers fearful of attempting, and inca- 
pable of executing, any useful plan of domestic ar- 



POLITICAL IDEAS OF OUR TIMES 347 

rangement or of foreign politics." As regards the 
effects upon the temper of the people he said, with 
striking appositeness to the present condition of 
American politics : " When the people conceive 
that laws and tribunals, and even popular assem- 
blies, are perverted from the ends of their institu- 
tion, they find in those names of degenerated 
establishments only new motives to discontent. 
... A sullen gloom and furious disorder prevail 
by fits. ... A species of men, to whom a state of 
order would become a sentence of obscurity, are 
nourished into a dangerous magnitude by the heat 
of intestine disturbances ; and it is no wonder that, 
by a sort of sinister piety, they cherish in their 
turn the disorders which are the parents of all 
their consequence. Superficial observers consider 
such persons as the cause of the public uneasiness, 
when in fact they are nothing more than the effect 
of it." 

Burke dismissed somewhat contemptuously the 
various projects in the way of new checks and pro- 
hibitions. A favorite reform proposal then was 
a bill to exclude office-holders from Parliament. 
He remarked, " It were better, perhaps, that they 
should have a corrupt interest in the forms of the 
constitution than that they should have none at 
all." He did not share in belief "of the infalli- 
bility of laws and regulations, in the cure of public 
distempers." Whatever they might be, the poli- 
ticians would get around them. " The science of 



348 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

evasion, already tolerably understood, would then 
be brought to the greatest perfection." The doc- 
trine " that all political connections are in their 
nature factitious, and as such ought to be dissi- 
pated and destroyed," and that "the rule for form- 
ing administration is mere personal ability," he 
energetically denounced as pernicious counsel. 
" Every honorable connedflon will avow it is their 
first purpose to pursue every just method to put 
the men who hold their opinions into such a con- 
dition as may enable them to carry their common 
plans into execution, with all the power and au- 
thority of the state. As this power is attached to 
certain situations, it is their duty to contend for 
these situations. Without a proscription of others, 
they are bound to give to their own party the 
preference in all things." In fine, Burke's remedy 
for factious strife and abounding corruption was 
frankly to adopt party rule by conferring upon 
party full power to act, coupled with complete re- 
sponsibility for what was done. It was from 
partisanship, thus strengthened and steadied, that 
the nation might hope " to see public and private 
virtues, not dissonant and jarring and mutually 
destructive, but harmoniously combined, growing 
out of one another in a noble and orderly grada- 
tion, reciprocally supporting and supported." 

The event has shown that just by such partisan- 
ship the regeneration of English politics was ac- 
complished. The corruption of English politics 



POLITICAL IDEAS OF OUR TIMES 349 

seems to have been accompanied by a more general 
infection of society than has taken place in this 
country, and the conditions of public life were 
more degraded than at any period of our history. 
We read with amazement of the torrent of bribery 
flowing through English constituencies, of candi- 
dates going to the polls surrounded by gangs of 
hired pugilists, and of the savage rioting or sod- 
den drunkenness that invested the polling booths. 
And yet it was from material furnished by such 
an electorate that the workings of public opinion 
wrought great party leaders and statesmen of shin- 
ing integrity. 

" Responsibility is a tremendous engine in a free 
government," said Jefferson. x " Responsibility, in 
order to be reasonable," said Madison, "must be 
limited to objects within the power of the responsi- 
ble party ; and in order to be effectual must relate 
to the operations of that power, of which a ready 
and proper judgment can be formed by the con- 
stituents." 2 These conditions were established 
in England when the cabinet system became defi- 
nitely converted into a party agency, uniting ad- 
ministration with the initiative of legislation. All 
that was then needed to establish accountability 
was the overthrow of the privacy of debate and 
voting, anciently regarded as a most sacred privi- 
lege for the protection of Parliament. This barrier 

1 Writings of Jefferson, Vol. V., p. 410. 

2 The Federalist, No. 63. 



350 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

was broken down after violent struggles, and then 
the reign of public opinion began. The new con- 
ditions developed a new type of statesmanship. 
The ability preferred by the situation was no longer 
that which excelled in the manipulation of the 
individual interests of members so as to obtain 
their cooperation in the transaction of public busi- 
ness. That was attended to by the constituencies 
themselves in fixing the party obligations of their 
representatives. The ability now ascendant was 
that which appealed to the support and confidence 
of the nation, and which was able to sustain the 
high responsibilities of public office. 

In meeting these responsibilities, English states- 
men have devised various instruments for correct- 
ing abuses and arresting corruption, the adoption 
of which, in this country, is now the great object 
of reformers. The idea seems to be that if similar 
machinery is forced upon our politicians, a proper 
and effective use of it must necessarily follow ; but 
so far such expectations have been disappointed. 
What has been introduced in this country as civil 
service reform, was established in England by the 
Aberdeen ministry in 1853 as a barrier against 
the selfish importunity of aristocratic influence. 
The reports of reform associations and the dis- 
closures of congressional investigations afford 
ample testimony of the fact that a device adopted 
by English party leaders to relieve them of press- 
ure to do what they did not want to do, does not 



POLITICAL IDEAS OF OUR TIMES 35 1 

serve so well to prevent American party leaders 
from doing what circumstances incline them to do, 
whether they like it or not. The Corrupt Practices 
Prevention law, which also is being introduced in 
this country, with high hopes of its utility as a 
reform measure, is the product of a series of English 
statutes, the first of which was passed in 1854. It 
is not very difficult for our clever politicians to 
evade such laws, but they have been effective 
in England because they are regarded as a pro- 
tection for candidates against blackmail and cor- 
ruption, and because they are useful as a handy 
club to knock out of public life men mean enough 
to resort to cheating. Far from desiring to evade 
such legislation, the tendency among English party 
leaders is to tighten its restraint so as to keep 
down election expenses. Before the creation of a 
regenerative force to give life and vigor to statutes, 
such legislation was as great a failure in England 
as in this country. In 1705, De Foe, after advert- 
ing to some acts passed against bribery, remarked, 
" Never was treating, buying of voices, freedoms 
and freeholds, and all the corrupt practices in the 
world, so open and barefaced as since these severe 
laws were enacted." Lecky states that "by an 
act of 1729, any elector might be compelled on 
demand to take an oath swearing that he had 
received no bribe to influence his vote, and any 
person who was convicted of either giving or re- 
ceiving a bribe at election was deprived forever 



352 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

of either giving or receiving the franchise and 
fined ;£500, unless he purchased indemnity by 
discovering another offender of the same kind " ; 
but the historian remarks that so long- as it was 
to the interest of politicians to shelter corruption, 
laws against it were a dead letter. On the other 
hand, even without specific legislation against cor- 
ruption, the operation of public opinion, addressing 
a responsible control, exerted a purifying influence. 
Writing in 1833, Macaulay remarked that whereas, 
formerly, nobody thought worse of a man because 
he had bought votes, the practice had become dis- 
honorable. The remedial process was a gradual 
one, effecting not a sudden cure, but a steady im- 
provement. Mr. Bagehot, in his famous work 
which finally disposed of the old Whig theory of 
the English constitution, pointed out that the 
really valuable reforms were instituted and made 
effectual by the politicians themselves. "The 
statesmen who worked the system that was put 
up had themselves been educated under the system 
that was pulled down." 

There is no reason for thinking that American 
politicians will be any less amenable to public 
opinion or less capable in obeying its requirements. 
But so long as our constitutional system provides 
that an administration chosen to carry out a party 
policy shall be debarred from initiating and direct- 
ing that policy in legislation, just so long is the 
party machine a necessary intermediary between 



POLITICAL IDEAS OF OUR TIMES 353 

the people and their government, and just so long 
will party management constitute a trade which 
those which have a vocation for politics cannot 
neglect, and those who make a business of politics 
will make as profitable as they can. As Burke 
wisely said, " Whatever be the road to power, 
that is the road which will be trod." 



CHAPTER XXVII 

THE POLITICAL PROSPECT 

Although " the Cause of the Present Discon- 
tents " has taken rank as a classic, it does not 
appear to have had any marked effect upon con- 
temporaneous thought. The general current of 
political speculation continued to be deeply tinct- 
ured by the fallacies of the old Whig theory. 
John Adams probably expressed the prevailing 
opinion when he wrote that Burke was far inferior 
to Bolingbroke as a thinker. Burke's essay gave 
great umbrage to reformers and called forth 
counter manifestoes. What the age admired was 
Churchill's satire, the invectives of Junius, and 
Mrs. Catherine Macaulay's 1 dissertations proving 
to the satisfaction of every one not a dolt or a 
knave that the corruptions of politics were due to 

1 Mrs. Macaulay was in high repute as the " celebrated female 
historian." She is referred to by John Adams as a recognized 
authority. A poet of the age declared : — 

" Macaulay shall in nervous prose relate 
Whence flows the venom that distracts the state." 

The prophecy was exactly fulfilled by a Macaulay whose fame has 
obliterated that of his predecessor, whose name is now preserved 
from oblivion mainly by some ungallant remarks at her expense by 
old Dr. Johnson, duly recorded by Boswell. 

354 



THE POLITICAL PROSPECT 355 

the disturbance of the constitution caused by the 
growth of partisanship. 

The belief that the constitution could be tink- 
ered into some sort of mechanical excellence pos- 
sessed reformers too strongly to be disturbed. An 
elaborate presentation of their ideas was made 
in Burgh's " Political Disquisitions, an Inquiry 
into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses," published 
in 1774. John Adams mentions that it was 
favorite reading in the colonies, and Jefferson rec- 
ommended it to a friend as a good work on politics. 
It is cited in The Federalist as a standard au- 
thority. In its three stout volumes one finds all 
the familiar nostrums for remedying the ills of the 
body politic — such as annual elections, rotation 
in office, the ballot, the extension of the suffrage, 
the requirement of residence in the constituency 
as a qualification for election, and above all things 
the suppression of partisanship. In England the 
course of practical politics would not budge for 
such reforms, but they have had a grand field in 
this country. New nostrums are now in favor, but 
the spirit of reform is unchanged. The great 
object is still, as in Burgh's time, "not to set 
up one party against another, the one to battle 
against the other ; but to take away the fuel of 
parties, the emolumentary invitations to the fatal 
and mischievous strife, in which every victory is 
a loss to the country." 1 

1 Burgh's Disquisitions, Vol. III., p. 332. 



356 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

Legislation conceived in this spirit has had grave 
consequences ; but for the present purpose it is 
sufficient to remark that there is nothing in the 
present condition of our politics to indicate that 
constitutional development is taking any different 
course than it has followed hitherto, as described 
in the second part of this work. On the contrary, 
there is abundant evidence to confirm the opinion 
that party organization continues to be the sole 
efficient means of administrative union between 
the executive and legislative branches of the 
government, and that whatever tends to maintain 
and perfect that union makes for orderly politics 
and constitutional progress ; while whatever tends 
to impair that union, disturbs the constitutional 
poise of the government, obstructs its functions, and 
introduces an anarchic condition of affairs full of 
danger to all social interests. This is the cardinal 
principle of American politics. 

The situation is such that the extension of exec- 
utive authority is still the only practical method 
of advancing popular rule. This disposition of 
American politics to exalt executive authority 
causes some critics of our institutions to infer 
that democracy tends towards personal rule. Ap- 
pearances seem to corroborate this theory ; but all 
that it really amounts to is that at the present 
stage of our political development American de- 
mocracy, confronted by the old embarrassments of 
feudalism, compounded from new ingredients, in- 



THE POLITICAL PROSPECT 357 

stinctively resorts to the historic agency for the 
extrication of public authority from the control 
of particular interests — the plenitude of executive 
power. The circumstances are such as are likely 
to put increasing emphasis upon this tendency. 

The actual situation as regards the practical 
work of government assigns real control to two 
systems of authority : one the power of the 
Speaker of the House over the opportunities 
of legislation ; the other the power of senators 
over the details of legislation. The latter is by 
far the more important, as it is the positive force ; 
the former operating simply as a check or inhibi- 
tion at large, and, from its gross and massive nat- 
ure, incapable of discrimination. The senatorial 
control is supple, insinuating, and under existing 
conditions it is ordinarily incontestable. By so 
much as particular interests are brought under a 
general control in the House, the more they value 
the opportunities afforded by senatorial preroga- 
tive; and thus there is created in the membership 
of the House a sense of dependence upon the offi- 
ces of senators, which greatly weakens the House 
as a body in any controversies with the Senate. 
There are always a large number of members who 
are fearful of injuring some special interests which 
they are pursuing by the aid of senators, so that 
they have no stomach for a conflict, and are quite 
willing to sacrifice the dignity of the House for 
their individual advantage. 



358 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OE POLITICS 

The possibility that the constitutional privileges 
of the Senate might be abused, so as to erect oli- 
garchical power, was foreseen by the framers of 
the constitution, and the representatives of the 
larger states would never have agreed to equality 
of senatorial representation with the smaller states 
had it not been supposed that the House of Rep- 
resentatives would dominate the legislative branch 
of the government. Speaking of that equality, 
Madison remarked : — 

" The peculiar defence which it involves in favor 
of the smaller states would be more rational if 
any interests common to them, and distinct from 
those of the other states, would otherwise be ex- 
posed to peculiar dangers. But as the larger 
states would always be able, by their power over 
the supplies, to defeat unreasonable exertions of 
this prerogative of the lesser states ; and as the 
facility and excess of law-making seem to be the 
diseases to which our governments are most liable, 
it is not impossible that this part of the constitution 
may be more convenient in practice than it ap- 
pears to many in contemplation." 1 

In this, as in all their estimates of the practi- 
cal working of the constitution, the fathers were 
misled by deceptive analogies drawn from the 
English constitution. All the checks upon which 
they relied for the control of the Senate, by means 
of the superior weight and influence of the House, 

1 The Federalist, No. 62. 



THE POLITICAL PROSPECT 359 

have failed in practice. Events have shown that 
the House is so little jealous of its power and con- 
sequence that members quietly permit the will of 
the nation, as declared in the election of the Presi- 
dent and an overwhelming majority of the House 
of Representatives, to be thwarted by an acci- 
dental preponderance of minority representation 
in the Senate, rather than risk the trouble and an- 
noyance of combating senatorial usurpation. Nay, 
it has been shown that members of the House are 
so absorbed in the service of their local interests 
that they eagerly seize the fact of an adverse ma- 
jority in the Senate as an excuse for abandoning 
any effort to fulfil national party pledges, prefer- 
ring to await the chances of political adjustments 
which may establish an accidental coincidence 
between the purposes of the Senate and the will 
of the nation. 

It was very natural to suppose that the superior 
weight and controlling authority of the House of 
Commons in the British legislature was due to the 
fact that it was the body immediately representing 
the people, but such was not the case. The as- 
cendency of the House of Commons dates no 
farther back than to the period when the seven 
years' term of membership was fixed. Mr. Lecky 
points out that " during the triennial period the 
frequency of elections made the members to a 
great extent subservient to the people who elected 
or to the noblemen who nominated them, and gave 



360 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

each Parliament scarcely time to acquire much 
self-confidence, fixity of purpose, or consistency of 
organization. The Septennial Act, and the pres- 
ence of Walpole in the House of Commons dur- 
ing the whole of his long ministry, gradually made 
that body the undoubted centre of authority." 1 
The parallel between the present condition of our 
House of Representatives, and the House of Com- 
mons before it obtained stability of position and 
became the seat of executive authority, is obvious. 
Although fresh from the people, and just at the 
beginning of their term, it was with great difficulty 
that Speaker Reed was able to hold the majority 
of the House to their shrewd and effective policy, 
at the extra session of 1897, of refusing to take 
up general legislation until the Senate had passed 
the tariff bill to enact which Congress had been 
specially convoked. 

At present, however, the government is subject 
to the rule of an oligarchy intrenched in the Sen- 
ate. Senator Hoar, a zealous defender of the dig- 
nity and privileges of the body of which he is a 
member, in a review article stated : — 

" We choose our chief magistrate every four years, 
and the members of one House of Congress every 
two years. One-third of the senators go out of 
office every two years. The term of office of an 
individual senator is six years. The Senate is con- 
trolled by a majority of the states. A majority of 

1 History of England, Vol. I., p. 472. 



THE POLITICAL PROSPECT 36 1 

the people cannot change the policy of the country 
unless a majority of the states also consent. A 
senator must be a citizen of the state from which 
he is chosen. Thus no change in the popular 
opinion can compel a change of policy during the 
four years of the President's term, nor can it com- 
pel a change of policy in a body where great and 
small states meet as equals, unless a majority of 
the states agree to the change. But the purpose 
and desire of the numerical majority of the Ameri- 
can people may be baffled for twenty years by the 
local interests and feeling of a majority of the 
states, and those, perhaps, the smallest in popu- 
lation." 1 

This is a revival of the state sovereignty doc- 
trine without any historical basis. It is bottomed 
wholly upon usurpation. But there is no likelihood 
that the House of Representatives, out of its own 
resources, will be able to make the effective resist- 
ance upon which the framers of the constitution 
relied as a means of preventing the Senate from 
turning the government into an oligarchy. The 
remedy must come, as in England, by the coopera- 
tion of executive power with representative author- 
ity. How potent is such a union of force is shown 
By the fact that in England it was able to reduce 
even a body of hereditary legislators into subordi- 
nation to the will of the people, as expressed 
through their direct representatives by majority 

1 The Forum, August, 1897. 



362 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

rule. Legally, the position of the British House 
of Lords seems impregnable. There is no way of 
getting any one of them out of office, and theoreti- 
cally nothing can be done without their consent. 
But, practically, they must agree to anything on 
which the House of Commons is resolutely de- 
termined. Of late years, since the functions of the 
Commons, as a college of electors, are somewhat 
impaired by the degeneracy of party government, 
the Lords have plucked up more spirit in opposing 
the Commons ; but in defeating a bill, they do it 
on the ground that their action is a method of in- 
voking a referendum. If the appeal to the people 
goes against the Lords, they have nothing to do 
but to submit. 

It is no longer possible for any institution of 
government, no matter what paper safeguards it 
may possess, to have any genuine strength, unless 
it is invigorated by democratic influence. One 
need only consider the real extent of the presi- 
dential authority in appointments to office, and 
the control over details of legislation inherent in 
the veto power when fully brought into play, to be 
convinced that the presidential office still retains 
its efficiency as an agency of popular control over 
the government, and that the power and influence 
of the office afford ample resources for the redress 
of grievances as soon as the determination to use 
them for that purpose shall have been developed. 
It is hardly too much to say that the President and 



THE POLITICAL PROSPECT 363 

the House of Representatives, acting in accord, 
are constitutionally omnipotent ; but the vast re- 
serves of power which they together possess would 
not have to be drawn upon to any great extent. 
The influence of party connection would make its 
influence felt in the Senate, just as it has done 
in its prototype, the House of Lords, long before 
any controversy could reach an acute stage ; but 
it is altogether probable that some very forcible 
interposition of the authority of the two repre- 
sentative branches of the government will have 
to be made before the oligarchical power of the 
Senate is curbed, and its authority reduced to 
constitutional dimensions. The only way in which 
the Senate will ever be reformed is by divesting 
it of all power to domineer. When it is out of 
the question for the Senate to oppose its will to 
the will of the nation, and its influence becomes 
wholly dependent upon the worth and dignity of 
its membership, then it will assume the character- 
istics which the fathers hoped to secure by its 
constitution. Party interest will then inspire the 
selection of the ablest men that can be found for 
service in the Senate, so that in the discharge of 
the purely advisory functions, which are all that 
senators should be permitted to exercise, their 
action will have the weight and influence which 
belong to wisdom and experience. 

Although the main instrument for the destruc- 
tion of the feudal characteristics which deface our 



364 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

form of government will be executive authority, 
yet in performing that service the presidential 
office will be surrounded by influences which will 
tend to preclude the subversion of its representa- 
tive character by the caprice or presumption of 
the individual who may chance to hold the office. 
The situation is such that only by entire accord 
and close association with a majority in the House 
of Representatives can such an exaltation of presi- 
dential authority be sustained, so that the aggran- 
dizement of the office can be accomplished only 
under conditions insuring democratic control. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

THE ULTIMATE TYPE 

The principle of elective kingship, — as repre- 
sented by the masterful Mayor, Governor, or Presi- 
dent, — in which democracy puts its trust, does not 
tend to a suppression of parliamentary agencies 
of government, such as took place in Europe dur- 
ing its period of emergence from feudalism ; but it 
tends rather to subordinate their action to general 
requirements, as in England, so that all that there 
is in them of public utility will be preserved for 
the use of the new type of government which 
American democracy is perfecting. The greatest 
curtailments of the authority of legislative bodies 
are those which have taken place in municipal 
charters and in various state constitutions ; but 
even at their lowest point of authority such bodies 
are retained as an indispensable part of the appa- 
ratus of government, open to an invigoration of 
their functions when political conditions correspond 
to such development. In national politics, the 
form of the legislative agencies of government has 
remained intact, and changes that have taken place 
in their functions have been sustained by their 
own activities. The House of Representatives 

365 



366 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

has practically subjugated its elaborate organiza- 
tion for the representation of local interests, by- 
developing a collective authority, which needs only 
direct association with executive policy to become 
an effective organ of responsible national control. 
The monstrous list of committees may very well 
continue, as now, to serve as convenient cemeteries 
for undesired legislation ; the complicated system 
of rules may still serve a useful purpose in con- 
trolling the moblike characteristics naturally ap- 
pertaining to so large a body ; and it will quite 
suffice for all the purposes of a responsible admin- 
istration of public affairs under representative in- 
stitutions if that resistless engine of control, forged 
by the development of the Speaker's authority and 
by the creation of the mandatory powers of the 
Committee on Rules, is made part of the apparatus 
of executive authority. So far as the constitution 
of the House of Representatives is concerned, 
party organization has very little left to do in 
completing the means of administrative union 
between the executive department and the legis- 
lative branch. 

The uniform experience of other countries has 
shown that when the executive power has been 
directly connected with the legislative branch, the 
tendency is not towards an increasing subordina- 
tion of the legislative branch, but is just the other 
way — the legislature is apt to annex the func- 
tions of the executive department. The invigora- 



THE ULTIMATE TYPE 367 

tion of legislative control by direct association 
with executive authority is the ground upon 
which some of our wisest statesmen have urged 
the deliberate adoption of measures to bring the 
administration face to face with Congress. The 
subject has been considered by a Senate commit- 
tee of exceptional ability, whose report is so im- 
portant a document that the main portion is given 
as an appendix to this work. The measure recom- 
mended has never developed any practical strength, 
as it was not appreciated by public sentiment, nor 
did it meet with any favor in Congress, where it 
encountered the latent opposition of particular in- 
terests naturally conservative of the opportunities 
which they now derive from representative institu- 
tions unaccompanied by responsible government. 

The development of executive authority, as an 
agency of popular control over the government, 
may, however, transform political conditions in a 
way that will promote a direct administrative union 
between the executive and legislative branches. 
Such an association between the presidential office 
and the House of Representatives, as must sooner 
or later ensue from their cooperation in suppress- 
ing the oligarchical power of the Senate, will have 
the result of making the House the real base of 
administration — not, as in the early days of the 
republic, by a transient location of support, but by 
firm establishment, fortified by party interests, and 
garrisoned by the activities of practical politics. 



368 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

The relations of particular interests to the general 
control, which then will have been established, will 
be such that the same inclinations which now con- 
spire to make the House membership deferential 
to the senatorial oligarchy, will then tend to favor 
the most extensive contact possible between the 
House and the administration. Members now 
run after senators because senators have arbitrary 
powers of control over offices, imposts, and appro- 
priations ; when the administration obtains control 
of the situation, particular demands will be no less 
avid, but they must then operate under new condi- 
tions. It is not likely that the mass of the mem- 
bers, will be satisfied to allow privileges of effective 
access to the government to be monopolized by 
committee chairmen, and they will find that their 
best opportunity, under the circumstances, will be 
obtained by embodying the administration directly 
in the House, where ft will be open to direct nego- 
tiation and engagements. The ultimate type of 
democratic government will be reached by a natu- 
ral development, promoted by the political oppor- 
tunism which affords the only safe process, as it 
always keeps in touch with practical expediency. 
Much more extensive in character and radical in 
nature are the changes which are likely to take 
place in the executive department under such 
conditions. The presidency now combines two 
distinct functions — -one ceremonial; the other 
practical — which advancing civilization makes 



THE ULTIMATE TYPE 369 

incongruous, so that, as history shows, they tend 
to severance. The President is the head of the 
nation, the chief magistrate, the common father 
of the people, to whom they write when in trouble 
or deeply moved, to whom they feel they have 
a right of personal access as primitive in its 
simplicity as if the office were still a tribal 
chieftainship ; but he is also the premier of the 
administration, a busy man of affairs, with so 
many things to attend to that there do not seem 
to be hours enough in the day for them all. The 
attempt to compass these two functions is a killing 
task, fraught with great perils to the individual 
incumbent and to the public welfare. With the 
establishment of a direct parliamentary basis for 
the government, the actual management of affairs 
will naturally tend to pass into the hands of groups 
of statesmen trained to their work by gradations 
of public service, their fitness attested by suc- 
cess in coping with their responsibilities under 
the direct and continuous scrutiny and criticism of 
Congress. The presidency will tend to assume 
an honorary and a ceremonial character, and will 
find therein its most satisfactory conditions of 
dignity and usefulness. 

This ultimate type of government, while it will 
have a parliamentary forum and will follow parlia- 
mentary usages in its ordinary mode of expression, 
will not be parliamentary in its nature. The limita- 
tions of the constitution, and the direction taken 

2B 



370 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

by constitutional development, provide an exclu- 
sively executive structure for the administration, 
and it will be independent of parliamentary vicis- 
situdes. The government will represent the will 
of the nation, as expressed at the presidential elec- 
tion.- Congress will have no power to suppress 
national volition, but it will possess the indepen- 
dent, but no less important, function of serving as 
the agency of the moral inhibitions which should 
attend the exercise of the will, insuring due con- 
sideration of all interests, and circumspection of 
procedure. Congress will retain the power to 
inhibit altogether any determination of the gov- 
ernment requiring legislative assent, but will have 
no power to prevent the government from shaping 
its proposals, defining exactly its position, and con- 
fronting the opposition with an explicit respon- 
sibility for which it must answer to the people. 
Having reached such a position, the administration 
of the government will have nothing to ask of party 
but the cultivation of public sentiment and the 
propagation of opinion, Party organization will 
therefore tend to revert to more simple structure 
and to become dependent upon spontaneous effort, 
while its present violence will disappear. Some- 
thing like the ease and placidity in such matters, 
which now obtain under democratic government in 
Switzerland, may ensue. The same influences will 
cause claims of public employment, based on par- 
tisan service, to decline in importance, and the 



THE ULTIMATE TYPE 37 1 

ordinary tests of competency, such as exist in the 
business world, will prevail in the public service 
also. The empirical influences which now per- 
vade the sphere of government will also decline, 
and the management of public affairs will take on 
a more scientific character. At present, intellect- 
ual authority has no means of proper contact with 
legislation. Expert advice is regarded by the peo- 
ple with a distrust not unreasonable in view of the 
way in which authorities differ, and of the extent 
to which charlatanry assumes the air of wisdom. 
But trusted leadership- may resort to any consulta- 
tion that it finds advantageous, and thus the re- 
sources of special ability and information may be 
brought directly to bear upon the elucidation of 
any question of public policy. 

Such a system of government would preserve 
everything of value in the parliamentary system of 
government, while avoiding its defects. There is 
an inherent weakness in the parliamentary type of 
government, suggesting the possibility that in the 
end it may turn out to have been after all a tran- 
sitory phase of political development. Already 
signs multiply that parliamentary institutions are 
a melancholy failure on the continent of Europe ; 
and in England, where the type was formed, they 
seem to be sustained by the force of traditions of be- 
havior which are gradually weakening. Perhaps the 
most remarkable of the passages in " The Present 
Discontents," which surprise one by their miracu- 



372 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

lous prescience, is that in which Burke called 
attention to the fundamental requirement for the 
successful operation of the parliamentary system. 
He said: "The popular election of magistrates, 
and popular disposition of rewards and honors, is 
one of the first advantages of a free state. With- 
out it, or something equivalent to it, perhaps the 
people cannot long enjoy the substance of freedom ; 
certainly none of the vivifying energy of good gov- 
ernment. The frame of our commonwealth did 
not admit of such an actual election ; but it pro- 
vided as well and (while the- spirit of the constitu- 
tion is preserved) better for all the effects of it 
than by the method of suffrage in any democratic 
state whatever." 

What Burke prophesied was indeed accom- 
plished to the letter, as Bagehot has shown in his 
commentary on the English constitution. The 
development of the cabinet system enabled the 
English people to elect their government, through 
the agency of Parliament as an electoral college, 
with the peculiar excellence that the college con- 
tinued to preside over its work, and to test its 
worth, with power to undo it and refer the mat- 
ter to the constituencies for a fresh declaration 
of public opinion. But the parliamentary type of 
government was the product of aristocratic control, 
and, with the increase of democratic forces, its 
adjustments are being disturbed, and processes of 
change are perceptible that may impair its efri- 



THE ULTIMATE TYPE 373 

ciency. The conditions, which make parliamentary 
government a system of national choice, will have 
been destroyed if the constitution of the gov- 
ernment becomes a composition of the forces of 
parliamentary factions, in which case the possi- 
bility is conceivable of ministries as poorly em- 
bodying the national will, and as unstable in their 
power, as those which flit across the stage of public 
affairs in France. It is to be hoped that the noble 
traditions of duty and responsibility which have 
been created in English public life will be a suffi- 
cient protection against degradation, and will safe- 
guard every change ; but England has yet to make 
terms with democracy, while every advance which 
America achieves in the art of government is 
firmly based upon democratic foundations. Cer- 
tainly, when the President shall have been con- 
verted into a Grand Elector, whose function is to 
constitute the government, every excellence which 
Bagehot claimed for the parliamentary system 
will have been gained for the presidential type of 
government, and both as the archetype of national 
unity, and as a practical institution of government, 
it will comprehend every element of majesty and 
strength. 1 Such a circumstance as that the actual 

1 This forecast of the ultimate type of American government, 
based upon direct inference from the actual tendencies of our 
politics, agrees with the conclusions reached by Mr. Herbert Spen- 
cer, upon philosophic grounds, as to the final outcome of political 
evolution. Mr. Spencer says, " Concerning the ultimate executive 



374 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

constitution of the government will by no means 
be confined to parliamentary circles, may eventu- 
ally be counted as a special advantage. There 
is no natural conjunction between parliamentary 
talent and administrative ability, and it enlarges 
the resources of government to have the ability of 
the nation to choose from in forming an adminis- 
tration^free from any conditions of merely parlia- 
mentary distinction. 

But this implies that democratic progress will 
omit a stage of political development, the most 
brilliant that has yet illumined the history of the 
human race. The course of political evolution is 
marked by lustrous periods, when the expanding 
energies of nations for a time achieve a type of 
government exactly suited to the national life 
and character. Such a period is that of the era 
of parliamentary government in England, the 
splendid traditions of which cast a reflected light 
upon our own national legislature, although the 
only time when it shone by any light of its own, 
or gave any souvenirs to popular tradition, was 
during the age of Clay, Webster, and Calhoun. 
That period is as near an approach to a brilliant 
parliamentary era as the course of our political 
development is ever likely to permit to us. All 

agency, it appears to be an unavoidable inference that it must be- 
come in some way or other elective; . . . and that the functions 
to be discharged by its occupant will become more and more auto- 
matic." Political Institutions, section 578. 



THE ULTIMATE TYPE 375 

grand expressions of national character, whether 
in literature, art, or politics, are orchestral in their 
quality, every note of the national genius contrib- 
uting to the result. To produce the Elizabethan 
drama required an epoch when a people, intelligent 
but unlearned, brave and free, yet reverential of 
authority, possessing a national consciousness 
vividly awake and throbbing from extraordinary 
excitements of world-wide battle and thrilling ad- 
venture, demanded satisfaction for their intellectual 
cravings in a noble form that they could see and 
hear. The fame which has attended the working 
of parliamentary institutions in England requires a 
theatre venerable in structure, august in renown, 
unique in political eminence, and surrounded by 
social esteem, so that the actors command both 
celebrity and appreciation. No such concurrence 
of favoring circumstances is possible under the 
conditions which, in this country, distribute pub- 
lic attention and detach political interests from 
the general interests of society. But it does not 
follow that we shall be losers thereby ; for the aim 
of democracy is not to develop a social order with 
which the duties and responsibilities of govern- 
ment may be safely deposited : its ideal is the 
creation of a perfect medium for all the activities 
of the social organism. All leadership is naturally 
aristocratic, and to aristocracy, and not to the 
mass, are due the gains of humanity ; but the demo- 
cratic type of government will develop a natural 



/ 



376 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

aristocracy, authenticated solely by merit, and free 
from all the losses and offsets which are entailed 
by special provision for the maintenance of an 
aristocratic class. There will be great public ad- 
ministrators, just as there are now great engineers, 
great inventors, great manufacturers, great mer- 
chants, great captains of industry. The political 
career will select appropriate talent, but it will be 
more unobtrusive, less engaging of public notice, 
more subordinate and accessory in its functions. 
By so much as the activities of politics are per- 
fected in their adaptation to the general needs of 
the social organism, the less they will intrude upon 
the public consciousness. Nothing is more unsci- 
entific than the current notion that to have a good 
government it will be necessary to educate every 
citizen into being a good politician. To expect 
that political development should contravene the 
universal law of the specialization of functions as 
the concomitant of progressive development, is a 
singular idea. The perfection of the type implies 
that the spontaneous operation of social instincts 
will adequately sustain political activities, as it does 
all other activities of the social organism, by the 
unforced play of individual tastes and inclinations. 
People who do not have a taste for politics need 
not reproach themselves for their aversion : they 
may have a higher vocation ; which, as for women, 
is certainly the case. 

The resultant economies of social force may be 



THE ULTIMATE TYPE 377 

grandly utilized, for this perfection of the type may 
be attended by an outburst of national genius 
of surpassing brilliancy. The reproach is made 
to America that it has a borrowed civilization, and 
that with all its material gains it has made no real 
contributions to culture. This varies the old com- 
plaint against democracy, which was that, although 
it produced an expansion of the intellectual ener- 
gies of the people, with splendid results in art and 
literature, it was incompatible with social order, 
and was sure to end in moral exhaustion and 
political degradation. In concentrating the na- 
tional energies upon material improvement, — an 
object naturally attended by extreme solicitude for 
the maintenance of order, — the republic provides 
for the stability of its political institutions, and 
thus escapes the traditional peril of democracy. 
That the character of its civilization is acquisitive 
rather than creative is a distinct advantage during 
the period in which it is engaged in laying, deep 
and strong, the foundations of social order, and 
at the same time it may be establishing a culture 
whose worth will be proportionate to the thorough- 
ness of the preparation. The greatest advances 
in human destiny have been the work of nations 
which borrowed a civilization as a starting-point 
for the creation of a new type under the stimulus 
of free institutions. Time may have been when 
the artists and savants of Egypt regarded with 
patronizing disdain the crude, adaptive civilization 



378 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

of Greece ; but there came an outpouring of demo- 
cratic genius which supplied all the materials of 
culture with which the world has worked ever 
since. The Renaissance, which set in motion the 
processes of modern civilization, was also the prod- 
uct of democratic forces. From such eras human- 
ity derives the principle of progress, without which 
civic organization would be only a large exhibition 
of instincts of social agglomeration, such as com- 
munities of ants, bees, or wasps display on a smaller 
scale, but in greater perfection. If mankind is ever 
going to ascend to a still higher plane of psychical 
activity, it is at least most likely to be the result 
of such an expansion of social energies as only a 
democratic order can evoke ; and if it is the mis- 
sion of America to adjust to democratic conditions 
all that civilization has now to offer, the accom- 
plishment of that task will provide such opportu- 
nities for the free expression of the noblest capa- 
cities of humanity as may produce an epoch of 
incomparable grandeur. 

Such speculations may appear fantastic, but 
they are no more so than would have been a fore- 
cast of the Victorian age just before its dawn, 
when the state of English politics was darkest. 
It may be admitted that there is no warrant for 
confidence in any abstract law of human develop- 
ment. The process of evolution is a statement of 
order, not an index of direction, and decay and 
dissolution are just as conformable to it as growth 



THE ULTIMATE TYPE 379 

and development. Mr. Charles Francis Adams, 
remarking upon some of the perils through which 
our government has passed, observed : " Much of 
the favorable working of a form of government, 
or the opposite, may be traced to circumstances 
having no necessary connection with its intrinsic 
excellence. The Polish constitution of 1791 was 
immediately overthrown by the interference of 
neighboring powers interested to destroy it. The 
constitution of the United States has survived till 
now, and bids fair to last much longer. But if 
we could for a moment suppose the geographical 
position of the two countries to have been exactly 
changed, looking back at the nature of the politi- 
cal controversies which agitated America for many 
years, it is at least open to question whether as 
marked disorders would not have been developed 
under the Constitution of the United States as 
were ever found in the worst of times in Poland." 1 
All this is very true ; and it is equally true that 
the insular position of England provided favorable 
circumstances, without which the peculiar excel- 
lences of her political development would have 
been impossible of attainment. Local circum- 
stances are, after all, the most influential factor 
in determining governmental arrangements ; but 
the conditions were peculiarly fortunate for the 
development of a new and superior type of gov- 

1 Note on p. 374, Vol. IV., of his edition of John Adams' Works. 



380 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

ernment, when English institutions were planted 
in the New World and began an independent ca- 
reer. From a humanistic point of view, it was the 
transmission of the intellectual estate of the Ro- 
manized world, relieved from entail to privileged 
classes, and intrusted to a people whose capacity 
for government had been developed by the direct 
succession of their institutions from their own 
race origins, and whose political habits had been 
made instinctive by the continuous discipline of 
their own race experience. In this aspect, Ameri- 
can politics may be regarded as at work upon the 
denouement of a drama of liberty whose acts have 
included the destinies of nations. Materials for 
it were provided by obliterated empires, the re- 
mains of which science is disinterring. It was 
begun by Greece and systematized by Rome ; re- 
vived by Italy and enlarged by Europe. Its latest 
episodes have been the Renaissance, the Reforma- 
tion, and the Revolution, in their various national 
phases, with widely different results. The world 
now waits to see how it will come out in the hands 
of America. Mr. Lecky has recorded the opinion 
that "the future destinies and greatness of the 
English race must necessarily rest mainly with 
the mighty nation which has arisen beyond the 
Atlantic." x De Tocqueville long ago foretold that 
all the European states would follow the same law 
of development as ourselves, and would end in the 

1 History of England, Vol. IV., p. 113. 



THE ULTIMATE TYPE 38 1 

democratic system which shall have been estab- 
lished here. 1 

When existing conditions are viewed with dis- 
cernment, grounds of confidence as to the future 
are afforded by evidences of political virtue which, 
after the dust of present turmoil subsides, may cause 
these times of struggle and anxiety to be regarded 
as the heroic age of America. 

The generation which endured the Civil War 
has witnessed the rehabilitation of the prostrated 
section, and has seen the ascendency of the race 
reestablished in the face of tremendous odds. Ex- 
tinction of the bitterness of conflict is so complete 
that late combatants hold fraternal reunions on 
fields over which once they fought, and both they 
and their children rally around the flag at their 
country's call ; while distinctions between victors 
and vanquished in eligibility to public service are 
effaced. This period of our national existence 
has also seen the development of our material 
resources carried to a point which confers indus^ 
trial primacy, with corresponding extensions of 
enterprise and business organization, implying re- 
sources of probity no less ample than of intelli- 
gence and skill. And, finally, the nation has 
shown the world that democratic institutions and 
an industrial type of society are compatible with 
the possession, in their highest degree, of all the 
heroic qualities which are the peculiar claim of 

1 Democracy in America, Vol. II., Chap. IX., p. 190. 



382 TENDENCIES AND PROSPECTS OF POLITICS 

militancy, while combining with them a deadly 
precision of attack which is the expression of an 
abounding mechanical skill, such as only indus- 
trialism can produce. Such manifestations show 
that the sources of national greatness are uncor- 
rupted, so that amid the baleful confusion of our 
politics patriotism may cherish the hope that a 
purified and ennobled republic will emerge — 

" Product of deathly fire and turbulent chaos, 
Forth from its spasms of fury and its poisons, 
Issuing at last in perfect power and beauty. 11 



APPENDIX 

DIRECT PARTICIPATION OF THE HEADS OF EXECU- 
TIVE DEPARTMENTS IN THE PROCEEDINGS OF 
CONGRESS 

Extract from Senate Report, No. 837, 46th Congress, ^d Session, 
February 4, 1 88 1 

The power of both houses of Congress, either sepa- 
rately or jointly, to admit persons not members to their 
floors, with the privilege of addressing them, cannot be 
questioned. " Each House may determine the Rules of 
its Proceedings," is the provision of the Constitution. 
Under this power each house admits a chaplain to open 
the proceedings with prayer. Under this power the 
House of Representatives constantly admits contestants 
to argue their title to membership, and sometimes admits 
counsel to argue in the same behalf. No one would doubt 
the power of the Senate to extend the same privilege to 
a claimant, or his advisers. 

By the act of 181 7, it is prescribed that " every Terri- 
tory shall have the right to send a Delegate to the House 
of Representatives of the United States, to serve during 
each Congress, who shall be elected by the voters in the 
Territory qualified to elect members of the legislative 
assembly thereof. . . . Every such Delegate shall have 
a seat in the House of Representatives, with the right of 

383 



384 APPENDIX 

debating, but not of voting." And under this authority 
the Delegates of the eight Territories sit to-day in the 
House of Representatives, and participate in its debates. 
A precedent directly in point has stood unchallenged since 
the first year of the organization of the government. The 
act of 1 789, organizing the Treasury Department, provided 
that " the Secretary of the Treasury shall, from time to 
time, digest and prepare plans for the improvement and 
management of the revenue and for the support of the 
public credit . . . shall make report and give informa- 
tion to either branch of the legislature, in person or in 
writing, as may be required, respecting all matters re- 
ferred to him by the Senate or House of Representatives, 
or which shall appertain to his office." 

When Hamilton made his great report 'on the public 
credit in 1790 he was, on motion, after discussion, re- 
quired to make it in writing, because the details were so 
numerous that, delivered orally, they would not remain 
in the memory of his hearers ; but the power and the 
propriety of requiring the personal presence of the Sec- 
retary were not then called in question, nor have they 
been questioned at any time since. This bill only per- 
mits and enjoins that to be done by all the Secretaries 
at convenient times which the law of 1 789 required and 
permitted to be done at any time by the Secretary of the 
Treasury. 

Your committee thinks it too plain for argument that 
Congress may enjoin upon the heads of departments the 
duty of giving information in the manner required by 
this bill. The constitutional provisions in relation to the 
executive departments are very simple. The President 
" may require the Opinion in writing of the Principal 



APPENDIX 385 

Officer in each of the executive Departments upon any 
Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices ; " 
and " Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such 
inferior Officers as they think proper in the President alone, 
in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments." 
These are all the provisions of the Constitution on this 
subject. Congress may, by inevitable implication, pre- 
scribe other duties and define other powers. Every act 
organizing every department has prescribed the duties of 
the principal officers, and has required the head of every 
department to report directly to Congress in reference to 
the discharge of the duties thus imposed upon his office. 

If by a line of precedents since the organization of the 
government Congress has established its power to require 
the heads of departments to report to it directly, and also 
its power to admit persons to the floor of either house to 
address it, the argument would seem to be perfect that 
Congress may require the report to be made or the in- 
formation to be given by the heads of departments on 
the floor of the houses, publicly and orally. The pro- 
vision of the Constitution, that " no Person holding any 
Office under the United States shall be a Member of either 
House during his Continuance in Office," is in no wise 
violated. The head of a department, reporting in person 
and orally, or participating in debate, becomes no more 
a member of either House than does the chaplain, or the 
contestant or his counsel, or the Delegate. He has no 
official term ; he is neither elected nor appointed to 
either house ; he has no participation in the power of 
impeachment, either in the institution or trial; he has 
no privilege from arrest ; he has no power to vote. 

We are dealing with no new question. In the early 



386 APPENDIX 

history of the government the communications were made 
by the President to Congress orally, and in the presence 
of both or either of the houses. Instances are not want- 
ing — nay, they are numerous — where the President of 
the United States, accompanied by one or more of his 
cabinet, attended the sessions of the Senate and House 
of Representatives in their separate sessions and laid 
before them papers which had been required and infor- 
mation which had been asked forV 

" Wednesday , July 22, 1789. — The Secretary of Foreign 
Affairs (Mr. Jefferson) attended, agreeably to order, and 
made the necessary explanations." — Annals of Congress, 
Firs I Congress, volume 1, page 51. 

"Saturday, August 22, 1789. — The Senate again en- 
tered on executive business. The President of the United 
States came into the Senate Chamber, attended by Gen- 
eral Knox, Secretary of War, and laid before the Senate 
the following statement of facts, with the questions thereto 
annexed, for their advice and consent." — Annals of Con- 
gress, First Congress, volume 1, page 66. 

And again on the Monday following the President and 
General Knox were before the Senate. 

" Friday, August 7, 1 789. — The following message was 
received from the President of the United States, by Gen- 
eral Knox, the Secretary of War, who delivered therewith 
sundry statements and papers relating to the same." — 
Proceedings of House of Representatives, Annals of Con- 
gress, volume 1, page 684. 

"Monday, August 10, 1789. — The following message 
was received from the President, by General Knox [Sec- 
retary of War], who delivered in the same, together with 
statement of the troops in the service of the United 



APPENDIX 387 

States." — Proceedings of House ofRepresejitatives, Annals 
of Congress, volume 1, page 689. 

Instances of this kind might be almost indefinitely 
multiplied, but these serve sufficiently to exhibit the 
practice established at an early day by those who framed 
the Constitution. The committee refers to the Annals of 
Congress, at the pages cited, for very interesting details 
of the proceedings of those respective days. They are 
too long to be copied here in full. 

This bill thus being clearly within the letter of the Con- 
stitution is, in the opinion of your committee, as clearly 
within its spirit. 

Your committee is not unmindful of the maxim that 
in a constitutional government the great powers are 
divided into legislative, executive, and judicial, and that 
they should be conferred upon distinct departments. 
These departments should be defined and maintained, 
and it is a sufficiently accurate expression to say that 
they should be independent of each other. But this 
independence in no just or practical sense means an 
entire separation, either in their organization or their 
functions — isolation, either in the scope or the exercise 
of their powers. Such independence or isolation would 
produce either conflict or paralysis, either inevitable col- 
lision or inaction, and either the one or the other would 
be in derogation of the efficiency of the government. 
Such independence of coequal and coordinate depart- 
ments has never existed in any civilized government, and 
never can exist. 

If there is anything perfectly plain in the Constitution 
and organization of the Government of the United 



388 APPENDIX 

States, it is that the great departments were not intended 
to be independent and isolated in the strict meaning of 
these terms ; but that, although having a separate exist- 
ence, they were to cooperate each with the other, as the 
different members of the human body must cooperate 
with each other in order to form the figure and perform 
the duties of a perfect man. \ 

The connection of the executive and the legislative 
departments of the government illustrates this position 
most strongly. Congress can pass no law without the 
assent of the President. The President can establish no 
office without the consent of Congress. Congress must 
provide him with the means of executing the great trusts 
confided to him. He must communicate to Congress 
the information and make the suggestions of legislation 
which his experience in administration teaches to be de- 
sirable. And so uniformly has Congress acted upon this 
interdependence of the executive and the legislative de- 
partments, that, as has been before said, Congress re- 
quires the chief officers of every executive department to 
report to it directly as to the performance of the duties 
and the execution of the powers confided to it. 

The result has been that the executive department, 
comprising in this term the President and the chief 
officers, has exercised necessarily and properly great in- 
fluence on the legislation of Congress. 

The principles enacted into laws are comparatively few 
and simple. The machinery by which these few and 
simple principles can be carried into actual administra- 
tion is complex, and can be perfected by experience 
only. The duties of administration necessarily compel 
the heads of departments to become familiar, not only 



APPENDIX 3 89 

with the best policy, but with the best methods of carry- 
ing policies into actual execution, and the consequence 
is that members of Congress, much less familiar, do in 
fact seek, either individually or through committees, the 
counsel and advice of these officers, and are, to a very 
great extent, influenced by them. 

The influence is exerted by means of the annual re- 
ports, of private consultations, and of special reports 
made in answer to special resolutions of inquiry by either 
house, and the question really submitted to the consider- 
ation of Congress by this bill is, whether these means of 
communication will not be greatly improved by consulta- 
tion between the members of Congress and these officers, 
face to face, on the floor of the houses. Your committee 
cannot doubt that the result would be most beneficial, 
and that no elaboration of reasons is necessary to bring 
Senators to the same conclusion. 

It has been objected that the effect of this introduc- 
tion of the heads of departments upon the floor would 
be largely to increase the influence of the executive on 
legislation. Your committee does not share this appre- 
hension. The information given to Congress would 
doubtless be more pertinent and exact ; the recommen- 
dations would, perhaps, be presented with greater effect, 
but on the other hand, the members of Congress would 
also be put on the alert to see that the influence is in 
proportion only to the value of the information and the 
suggestions; and the public would be enabled to de- 
termine whether the influence is exerted by persuasion 
or by argument. / No one who has occupied a seat on 
the floor of either house, no one of those who, year after 
year, so industriously and faithfully and correctly report 



390 APPENDIX 

the proceedings of the houses, no frequenter of the lobby 
or the gallery, can have failed to discern the influence 
exerted upon legislation by the visits of the heads of de- 
partments to the floors of Congress, and the visits of the 
members of Congress to the offices in the departments. 
It is not necessary to say that the influence is dishonest 
or corrupt, but it is illegitimate ; it is exercised in secret 
by means that are not public — by means which an hon- 
est public opinion cannot accurately discover, and over 
which it can therefore exercise no just control. The 
open information and argument provided by the bill may 
not supplant these secret methods, but they will enable 
a discriminating public judgment to determine whether 
they are sufficient to exercise the influence which is 
actually exerted, and thus disarm them. 

It has been objected that the introduction of the heads 
of departments on the floor would impair the influence 
of the executive power ; that it would bring them and 
Congress in closer relations and thus lessen their depend- 
ence on the President, and, to that extent, deprive him of 
his constitutional power and relieve him of his constitu- 
tional responsibility. It would be enough to say, in an- 
swer to this objection, that no power exists anywhere to 
diminish the duties or powers or responsibilities imposed 
by the Constitution upon the President. The committee 
ventures again to repeat that the effect of the bill does 
not seek to — and will not — aggrandize or impair the 
executive power as defined in the Constitution and vested 
in the President. 

The President, and the President alone, is the constitu- 
tional executive; he and he alone is the coordinate ex- 
ecutive branch of the government ; he and he alone is 



APPENDIX 391 

the " Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the 
United States, and of the militia of the several States when 
called into the actual service of the United States." He 
and he alone " shall have power to grant reprieves and par- 
dons for offences against the United States ; " to make 
treaties with the advice and consent of the Senate, pro- 
vided two-thirds of the Senators present concur ; to nomi- 
nate and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate 
to appoint embassadors and other public ministers and con- 
suls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of 
the United States whose appointments are not otherwise 
provided for ; " to give to Congress information as to the 
state of the Union; " on extraordinary occasions to con- 
vene and adjourn Congress ; " " to receive embassadors 
and other public ministers ; to take care that the laws be 
faithfully executed ; to commission all the officers of the 
United States; " and to exercise the veto power. These 
are the functions of the executive power which is vested 
in the President by the Constitution. They can be per- 
formed neither in whole nor in part by another ; neither 
the President nor the Congress nor both can delegate them 
or abridge them. Both the President and the Congress 
are bound to maintain and protect them. The depart- 
ments and their principal officers are in no sense sharers 
of this power. They are the creatures of the laws of 
Congress, exercising only such powers and performing 
only such duties as those laws prescribe. 

The First Congress, after long debate, decided that 
the President should have the power of appointment and 
removal, unimpaired, except, as in all other cases, by 
impeachment; and that the Secretaries should perform 
all the duties imposed upon them by law and by the con- 



392 APPENDIX 

stitutional power of the President to call for written 
opinions. The Secretaries were made heads of depart- 
ments ; they were charged by law with certain duties, 
and invested by law with certain powers to be used 
by them in the administration confided to them by 
the laws. They were in no sense ministers of the 
President, his hand, his arm, his irresponsible agent, in 
the execution of his will. There was no relation analo- 
gous to that of master and servant or principal and agent. 
The President cannot give them dispensation in the per- 
formance of duty, or relieve them from the penalty of 
non-performance. He cannot be impeached for their 
delinquency ; he cannot be made to answer before any 
tribunal for their inefficiency or malversation in office ; 
public opinion does not hold him to stricter responsi- 
bility for their official conduct than that of any officer. 
They are the creatures of law and bound to do the bid- 
ding of the law. 

This bill will not change their legal relations, either to 
the President or to the Congress. It will not make their 
tenure of office in any wise dependent on the favor of 
Congressional majorities or on adverse votes of either or 
both of the houses. They cannot assume undue leader- 
ship in Congress, because success will not prolong, as 
defeat will not terminate, their tenure of office. They 
may be removed by the President at any moment, not- 
withstanding their success. They may be maintained in 
office by him during his whole term, notwithstanding their 
defeat. At the end of his term they will almost certainly 
leave office and probably soon have place in Congress. 
Their independence of Congress will prevent their suc- 
cumbing to its will, and will rouse the natural jealousy of 



APPENDIX 393 

Congress to resist their power becoming too great. The 
concurrence of opinion between the President and Con- 
gress is not essential, perhaps is not possible. Neither 
will be broken down by the assertion of the will of the 
other in its own department, because both will soon be 
called to judgment by the people, and the people will 
correct any antagonism which threatens the effective 
working of the government. 

This system will require the selection of the strongest 
men to be heads of departments, and will require them 
to be well equipped with the knowledge of their offices. 
It will also require the strongest men to be the leaders of 
Congress and participate in debate. It will bring these 
strong men in contact, perhaps into conflict, to advance 
the public weal, and thus stimulate their abilities and their 
efforts, and will thus assuredly result to the good of the 
country. 

If itshould appear by actual experience that the heads 
of departments in fact have not time to perform the addi- 
tional duty imposed on them by this bill, the force in their 
offices should be increased, or the duties devolving on 
them personally should be diminished. An under-secre- 
tary should be appointed to whom could be confided that 
routine of administration which requires only order and 
accuracy. The principal officers could then confine their 
attention to those duties which require wise discretion and 
intellectual activity. Thus they would have abundance 
of time for their duties under this bill. Indeed, your 
committee believes that the public interest would be sub- 
served if the Secretaries were relieved of the harassing 
cares of distributing clerkships and closely supervising 
the mere machinery of the departments. Your com- 



394 APPENDIX 

mittee believes that the adoption of this bill and the 
effective execution of its provisions will be the first step 
towards a sound civil-service reform, which will secure a 
larger wisdom in the adoption of policies, and a better 
system in their execution. 

GEO. H. PENDLETON. 

W. B. ALLISON. 

D. W. VOORHEES. 

J. G. BLAINE. 

M. C. BUTLER. 

JOHN J. INGALLS. 

O. H. PLATT. 

J. T. FARLEY. 



Story on the Constitution, section 869 et seq. : — 
The heads of the departments are, in fact, thus pre- 
cluded from proposing or vindicating their own measures 
in the face of the nation in the course of debate, and are 
compelled to submit them to other men who are either 
imperfectly acquainted with the measures or are indiffer- 
ent to their success or failure. Thus that open and pub- 
lic responsibility for measures which properly belongs to 
the executive in all governments, and especially in a re- 
publican government, as its greatest security and strength, 
is completely done away. The Executive is compelled to 
resort to secret and unseen influences, to private inter- 
views, and private arrangements to accomplish its own 
appropriate purposes, instead of proposing and sustain- 
ing its own duties and measures by a bold and manly 
appeal to the nation in the face of its representatives. 
One consequence of this state of things is, that there 



APPENDIX 395 

never can be traced home to the Executive any responsi- 
bility for the measures which are planned and carried at 
its suggestion. Ai;other_j:gnsequence will be (if it has 
not yet been) that measures will be adopted or defeated 
by private intrigues, political combinations, irresponsible 
recommendations, and all the blandishments of office, and 
all the deadening weight of silent patronage. The Ex- 
ecutive will never be compelled to avow or support any 
opinions. His ministers may conceal or evade any ex- 
pression of their opinions. He will seem to follow, when, 
in fact, he directs the opinions of Con gress. He will as- 
sume the air of a dependent, when, in fact, his spirit and 
his wishes pervade the whole system of legislation. J£ 
corruption ever eats its way silently into the vitals of this 
republic it will be because the people are unable to bring 
responsibility home to the Executive through his chosen 
ministe rs. They will be betrayed when their suspicions 
are most lulled by the Executive under the disguise of an 
obedience to the will of Congress. If it would not have 
been safe to trust the heads of departments, as represent- 
atives, to the choice of the people as their constituents, 
it would have been at least some gain to have allowed 
them seats, like territorial delegates in the House of 
Representatives, where they might freely debate without 
a title to vote. 

In such an event their influence, whatever it would 
be, would be seen and felt and understood, and on that 
account would have involved little danger and more 
searching jealousy and opposition; whereas it is now 
secret and silent, and from that very cause may become 
overwhelming. One other reason in favor of such a right 
is that it would compel the Executive to make appoint- 



396 APPENDIX 

merits ■ far. the high departments of government, not from 
personal or party favorites, but from statesmen of high 
public character, talent, experience, and elevated ser- 
vices ; from statesmen who had earned public favor and 
could command public confidence. At present gross in- 
capacity may be concealed under official forms, and igno- 
rance silently escape by shifting the labors upon more 
intelligent subordinates in office. The nation would be, 
on the other plan, better served, and the Executive sus- 
tained by more masculine eloquence as well as more 
liberal learning. . . . There can be no danger that a 
free people will not be sufficiently wakeful over their 
rulers and their acts and opinions when they are known 
and avowed, or that they will not find representatives in 
Congress ready to oppose improper measures or sound the 
alarm upon arbitrary encroachments. The real danger is 
when the influence of the rulers is at work in secret and 
assumes no definite shape ; when it guides with silent and 
irresistible sway, and yet covers itself under the forms of 
popular opinion or independent legislation ; when it does 
nothing, yet accomplishes everything. 



INDEX 



ACHESON, Representative, cited, 
n. 252. 

Adams, Charles Francis, cited, 379. 

Adams, John, on party divisions in 
colonies, 2 ; on sectional bitter- 
ness, 2 ; on printed votes, 7 ; on 
the caucus club, 8 ; on balanced 
powers of government, 35 ; favors 
titles of dignity for President, 55 ; 
philosophy of government, 60; 
describes United States as a 
monarchical republic, 61 ; on 
Washington's fears for his coun- 
try, n. 66 ; on Washington's joy 
on quitting office, n. 74 ; Maclay's 
opinion of, 76 ; favors election of 
army officers by Congress, 99; 
on alien journalists, in ; Wash- 
ington's relations with, 118 ; de- 
nounced by Hamilton, 118; 
closing scenes of his adminis- 
tration, 119; on popular revolt 
against Washington's foreign 
policy, 125 ; on quarrels over 
patronage, 135, 137; defends 
property qualifications of suf- 
frage, 168 ; favors rotation in 
office, 169; interfered with by 
the Senate, 260. 

Adams, John Quincy, elected Pres- 
ident, 158 ; on presidential au- 
thority, 291 ; on electioneering 
excitements, 303. 

Adams, Samuel, organizes com- 
mittees of correspondence, 8. 

Addison, Joseph, 108. 

Addison, Judge, 113. 

Akenside, Mark, 341. 



Alabama, 116. 

Allen, Senator, cited, n. 233. 

Ames, Fisher, on the basis of 
government, 67 ; a formidable 
neighbor needed, 69 ; on con- 
gressional committee system, 88 ; 
on the public press, 11 1 ; on the 
perils of democracy, 120. 

Anti-Federalism, a party of nega- 
tion, 101. 

Anti-Masonic party, 201. 

Bagehot, Walter, on the English 
constitution, 93 ; on American 
genius for politics, 310 ; cited, 
352; mentioned, 372, 373. 

Ballot, the, early introduction in 
America, 5. 

Benton, Thomas H., on removals 
from office, 171 ; on original po- 
sition of the House of Represent- 
atives, 193 ; on transformation of 
the system of presidential elec- 
tion, 208 ; on administrative con- 
nection between Congress and 
President, 278. 

Blackstone's Commentaries, 29. 

Bolingbroke, 90, 342. 

Bonaparte, Napoleon, his imperial 
ideas, 19. 

Boston, a revolutionary centre, 10. 

Brackenridge, Hugh H., 127, 198. 

Bryce, James, cited, 19, 300, 311. 

Buchanan, James, 280. 

Burgh, J., author of Political Dis- 
quisitions, 169 ; his reform pro- 
posals, 355. 

Burke, Edmund, on political torpor 



397 



398 



INDEX 



in England, 14; on balanced 
powers of government, 29 ; on 
aristocracy, 71 ; defends party 
government, 91 ; a Whig pam- 
phleteer, 109 ; on conditions of 
parliamentary dignity, 193 ; on 
political management, 308 ; men- 
tioned, 338 ; diagnosis of political 
disease, 345-348 ; popular elec- 
tion the essential principle of 
free government, 372. 
Burr, Aaron, rivalry with Hamilton, 
144 ; his local power undermined, 
146 ; tries conspiracy, 147. 

Cabinet, development of, 79 ; ap- 
proximates a bureaucracy, 165 ; 
will ultimately manage the actual 
administration, 369. 

Calhoun, on Jefferson's shortcom- 
ings, 132 ; on South Carolina's 
immunity from the spoils sys- 
tem, 142; on necessity of strength 
in government, 162 ; on President 
Jackson, 180; on original as- 
cendency of House of Represent- 
atives, 193 ; on transformation of 
the system of presidential elec- 
tion, 209 ; on the genesis of the 
spoils system, 210 ; constitutional 
basis of his nullification theory, 
211; dangers of civil war from 
party violence, 303. 

Callender, 107. 

Calvin, John, ideal of a Christian 
commonwealth, 26. 

Cameron, J. Donald, mentioned, 
n. 223. 

Cannon, Representative, cited, 248. 

Carlisle, John G., Secretary of 
the Treasury, 86; as Speaker, 
251. 

Carteret, 341, 342. 

Caucus, early origin of, 8 ; Con- 
gressional, 155 ; effects upon 
character of the administration, 



165 ; tended towards the conven- 
tion system, 199. 

Central American republics, 69. 

Charles I., 123. 

Chase, Samuel, becomes Federal- 
ist, 102; attempt to impeach, 
127. 

Chastellux, Marquis de, 11. 

Civil Service Reform, 350. 

Clay, Henry, on the overthrow of 
congressional control, 173 ; on 
the veto power, 180 ; his influence 
as Speaker, 262; advocates re- 
striction of Senate debate, 266. 

Cleveland, Grover, obtains repeal 
of Tenure of Office Law, 268. 

Clinton, De Witt, undermines 
Burr's leadership, 146; his scru- 
ples about removals from office, 
148 ; presidential candidate in 
opposition to Madison, 157; 
mentioned, 199, 201, 205. 

Colonial politics, their aristocratic 
complexion, 4; early adoption 
of English reform ideas, 5 ; vot- 
ing methods, 6, 7 ; beginnings of 
party organization, 7 ; aristocratic 
ascendency, 10; social condi- 
tions, 11; two streams of ideas, 
30; cause of the revolutionary 
struggle, 31. 

Colonial society, 3. 

Confederation, not a regular gov- 
ernment, 34; a makeshift, 37; 
anarchical influences, 38-40. 

Congress of the Confederation, a 
diplomatic body, 36; never ob- 
tained public confidence, 36 ; 
moral deterioration of, 96; de- 
fective organization of, 97 ; issues 
paper money, 98 ; retains control 
of army affairs, 99 ; creates in- 
dependent executive depart- 
ments, 100; distracted by dis- 
putes over offices, 135. 

Congress of United States, public 



INDEX 



399 



sittings not required, 63 ; immu- 
nity of members, 63 ; not meant 
to be controlled by public opin- 
ion, 64; follows English prece- 
dents, 73 ; attends the President's 
audience chamber, 74; suspi- 
cious of executive designs, 76; 
original relations to the admin- 
istration, 81 ; squabble over site 
of national capital, 86 ; connec- 
tion with administration dislo- 
cated by party spirit, 88 ; origin 
of system of standing commit- 
tees, 88 ; President consulted on 
committee chairmanships, 155; 
diversities in election of mem- 
bers, 156 ; national regulation of 
elections, 160 ; extends its juris- 
diction, 164 ; establishment of a 
parliamentary regime, ' 165 ; de- 
termines national policy, 166; 
administrative relations affected 
by Jackson's election, 168 ; end 
of the parliamentary regime, 173 ; 
reduced importance of, 192; a 
diplomatic body, 221 ; character- 
istics of its procedure, 222 ; sub- 
ordinate to party organization, 
223, 294 ; development of its 
committee system, 225 ; explana- 
tion of its peculiarities, 228 ; op- 
pressed by its own mechanism, 
229 ; unable to legislate carefully, 
231; no direct representation of 
general interests, 232: subservi- 
ent to special interests, 233 ; apt 
to misconceive public opinion, 
234; subject to irresponsible 
control, 235 ; its character exem- 
plified by the Record, 237 ; origi- 
nal respect for President's initia- 
tive, 278 ; congressional policy 
shaped by executive influence, 
279-283 ; disposition to shift re- 
sponsibility to the President, 284- 
286; final place in our constitu- 



tional system, 370; can admit 
heads of administration to direct 
participation in legislative pro- 
ceedings, 383-394 ; results of the 
present separation of executive 
and legislative branches, 394- 
396. 

Connecticut, 10, 167, 191. 

Constitution of the United States, 
starting-point, 40; inside politics 
of movement, 41-44; formation 
of, 45-57; modelled on English 
constitution, 47; an embodiment 
of Whig doctrine, 51 ; English 
reform ideas incorporated, 52; 
anti-democratic nature, 53, 54; 
a deposit from the stream of 
English constitutional ideas, 56; 
originated a new type of govern- 
ment, 57 ; theory of its checks 
and balances, 60; fallacious ex- 
pectations of, 67 ; energized by 
the gentry, 68 ; failure of, as a 
general model of government, 
68 ; effect upon course of politi- 
cal development, 71 ; leaves great 
latitude to state action, 150; 
scheme of presidential election 
miscarries, 153 ; diversities in 
appointment of presidential elec- 
tors, 154; attempts at amend- 
ment, 159; broad construction 
tendency developed in Congress, 
164; nature of the veto power, 
177 ; its development, 183 ; ex- 
tends to items, 185 ; effacement 
of the constitutional design for 
the election of President, 208; 
the genesis of the nullification 
doctrine, 211 ; of the secession 
movement, 212; lack of proper 
organs for democratic func- 
tions, 215 ; its character as a 
working machine of government, 
217 ; function of the convention 
system, 220 ; constitutional func- 



400 



INDEX 



tions of the President, 275-277, 
291 ; failure of constitutional 
checks upon President's power, 
288 ; public attachment to obso- 
lete ideas, 334; practical conse- 
quences of, 346 ; the future course 
of constitutional development, 
356, 363 ; the ultimate type, 369- 
374; power of Congress to admit 
executive officials to participate 
in legislative debate, 383-394. 

Constitutional Union Party, 206. 

Convention system, see Party or- 
ganization. 

Corruption of State legislatures, 
46, 320, 323. 

Crawford, W. H., 158. 

Dallas, Alexander, 127. 

De Foe, 351. 

Delaware, methods of voting in, 
7, 116, 159. 

Democracy, fear of, 45, 46; fav- 
ored by territorial conditions, 
69 ; Fisher Ames on, 125 ; ten- 
dencies towards, 134 ; political 
upheaval of, 158 ; effects upon 
mode of presidential election, 
159; its constitutional expression 
in America and England com- 
pared, 213 ; mode of its consti- 
tutional development, 219; con- 
verts the presidency into an 
elective kingship, 293 ; multiplies 
elective offices, 299 ; its ideal a 
perfect medium for social activi- 
ties, 375 ; the democratic type of 
government, 376; its grand pos- 
sibilities, 377, 378, 380; human 
progress a democratic principle, 
378. 

Democratic party founded by Jack- 
son, 172; obtained possession of 
the Jeffersonian tradition, 173 ; 
support of the veto power a 
party principle, 181. 



De Tocqueville, cited, 262, 380. 

Dickinson, John, state rights a 
social security, 46 ; on the fed- 
eral system, 50; on the Senate, 
53 ; favors restriction of the suf- 
frage, n. 70 ; becomes a Repub- 
lican leader, 102; author of the 
Farmer's Letters, no. 

Drinking customs, 2. 

Elective franchise, conditioned by 
property qualifications, 4 ; mode 
of, 6; an inducement to settlers, 
70; movement toward manhood 
suffrage, 133; applied to presi- 
dential elections, 158 ; great ex- 
tension of, 167 ; transforms the 
government, 167; extension an- 
tagonized by old-school states- 
men, 168. 

Electoral college, devised as a dis- 
cretionary body, 50; controlled 
by the Congressional Caucus, 155; 
diversity in modes of state ap- 
pointment, 154; district system 
of election abandoned, 159; be- 
comes subservient to popular 
control, 161 ; becomes a demo- 
cratic agency, 214 ; divested of 
its original discretion, 219. 

Ellsworth, Oliver, denounces Jef- 
ferson in charging a jury, 113; 
on President's revisionary power 
over legislation, 177. 

England, political instability, 23; 
prevalence of corruption, 24; 
vigor of representative institu- 
tions, 26; antipathy to repub- 
lics, 28 ; attachment to balanced 
powers of government, 29 ; atti- 
tude to United States during 
Confederation period, 38 ; pes- 
simistic sentiment, 66; modern 
constitutional theory of, 93 ; de- 
velopment of its political charac- 
teristics, 122; politics during the 



INDEX 



401 



eighteenth century, 335-349; re- 
generated by party government, 
349 ; reform measures, 350-352 ; 
inherent weakness of parliament- 
ary government, 371 ; conditions 
for satisfactory working of the 
constitutional system, 372-375. 
English Constitutional Society, 8. 

Federalist party, supports the adop- 
tion of constitution, 101; sup- 
ports the administration, 105; 
behavior of judges, 112; enacts 
the alien and sedition laws, 113 ; 
wrecked by them, 117; causes 
of its weakness, 117; its rise in 
New York, 143; election trick- 
ery, 151. 

Fillmore, Millard, 280. 

Fox, Henry, 138, 337. 

France, opposed large concessions 
to America, 16; indifferent to 
American welfare, 37; constitu- 
tion of 1791, 68 ; sustains Frank- 
lin, 97 ; mentioned, 373. 

Franco-mania, its prevalence in 
England, 25. 

Franklin, Benjamin, colonial agent 
at Westminster, 2; thought 
America would lapse into king- 
ship, n. 51 ; attempt to dismiss 
him, 97. 

Frederick the Great, 97. 

Freneau, 107. 

Garfield, James A., assassination 

of, 268. 
George III., 14, 24, 32, 67, 90, 138, 

213- 344- 

Georgia, methods of voting in, 7, 
116, 158, 160. 

Gerry, El bridge, democracy prone 
to injustice, 46. 

Gibbon, preference for French so- 
ciety, 25 ; political speculations 
of, 65. 

2 D 



Giddings, Joshua, 240. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, celebrates royal 
prerogative, 25. 

Gordon, William, on origin of 
caucus, 4. 

Grant, U. S., holds that appropri- 
ations are not mandatory, 185; 
interested in Mexican recipro- 
city treaty, n. 245 ; condemns 
Tenure of Office Act, 267. 

Griffin, Cyrus, president of Con- 
gress, 4; on America's contempt- 
ible situation, 38. 

Guizot on federal government, 57. 

Gustavus III. of Sweden, 22. 

Hamilton, Alexander, on the Con- 
federation, 37 ; how to govern 
men, 47 ; favors strong executive, 
54; on administration, 59; de- 
spondent of public affairs, n. 66 ; 
his scheme of presidential eti- 
quette, 72; Maclay's opinion of, 
76; attitude to Adams' adminis- 
tration, n. 80; his maxim of 
practical politics, 81 ; assumes 
functions of a crown minister, 
81; organizes Treasury depart- 
ment, n. 81 ; adheres to English 
precedents, 82; premier of the 
ministry, n, 82; his financial 
measures, 83 ; his self-sacrificing 
public spirit, 85; bargains with 
Jefferson to carry the Assump- 
tion bill, 87 ; one of the authors 
of The Federalist, no; regards 
alien and sedition laws as im- 
politic, 114; political methods in 
New York, 143 ; plans the Chris- 
tian Constitutional Society, 145 ; 
political sharp practice proposed 
to Jay, 151 ; on the presidential 
veto, 176; compares it with the 
royal negative, 178 ; on supreme 
importance of presidential elec- 
tion, 196; senators to have no 



402 



INDEX 



choice as to appointments, 260; 
President the centre of adminis- 
tration, 277 ; on evasion of re- 
sponsibility, 327. 

Hare, legal opinion of President's 
authority, 291. 

Harrington, James, author of 
" Oceana," 169. 

Harrison, Gov. Benj., on popular 
ignorance of causes of Revolu- 
tion, 11. 

Harrison, William Henry, theory 
of presidential responsibility, 
189. 

Hastings, Daniel H., his vetoes, 
184. 

Hawley, Senator, n. 240. 

Hayes, Rutherford B., mentioned, 
289; on President's power, 291. 

Henry, Patrick, opposition of, to 
constitution, n. 63; condemns 
Virginia and Kentucky resolu- 
tions, 102. 

Hepburn, of Iowa, n. 242. 

Hill, David B., his vetoes, 184. 

Hoar, Senator, on the courtesy of 
the Senate, n. 268 ; on changed 
conditions in the Senate, n. 269; 
on the Senate as an instrument 
of minority rule, 360. 

Holy Roman Empire, 19. 

House of Representatives, see 
Representatives. 

Hume, on turbulence of English 
politics, 24; on superiority of 
French society, 25. 

Ingersoll, Jared, 127. 

Internal improvements, beginnings 

of, 164. 
Italian republics, 22. 

Jackson, Andrew, natural leader 
of the democratic movement, 
157; his presidential candidacy 
in 1824, 158; elected President, 



159; causes of his triumph, 168; 
reforms public office, 170 ; shapes 
party issues, 171 ; founder of the 
Democratic party, 172; asserts 
presidential authority, 173 ; vigor- 
ous use of veto power, 180; sus- 
tained by the people, 181 ; his 
administration a constitutional 
landmark, 212 ; evades Senate's 
power of rejecting nominations, 
290. 

Jay, John, one of the authors of 
The Federalist, no; declines 
chief-justiceship, 119; rejects 
Hamilton's sharp practice, 152. 

Jefferson, Thomas, on balanced 
powers of government, 34; Ma- 
clay's opinion of, 76; attitude to 
Washington's administration, n. 
79; bargains for the Potomac 
site, 87 ; on legal tender acts, 98 ; 
a national politician, 101; op- 
posed to growth of city popula- 
tion, 104; hostility to Hamilton's 
policy, 105; friendly towards 
John Adams, 117; style of his 
administration, 130; its authori- 
tative character, 131 ; letter to 
William Wirt, 133; letter on re- 
movals from office, 139 ; favored 
rotation in office, 168 ; approved 
an exercise of President's veto 
power, 179 ; did not himself use 
the veto power, 179 ; his manual 
of parliamentary law, 224, 252 ; 
his Secretary of the Navy never 
confirmed, 290. 

Johnson, Andrew, 288. 

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 338, 342. 

Junius, 15, 138, 354. 

King, Rufus, on President's respon- 
sibility, 277. 

Kentucky resolutions, framed by 
Jefferson, 116. 

Knox, General, Maclay's opinion 



INDEX 



403 



of, 76; accompanies Washington 
to Senate chamber, yj. 

Laurens, Henry, on corruption of 
Continental Congress, 96. 

Lecky, W. E. H., cited, 263, 335, 
339- 34°. 3SL 38o. 

Lee, Arthur, 8. 

Lee, Richard Henry, 102. 

Lincoln, Abraham, 280. 

Lincoln, James, n. 79. 

Louisiana, methods of voting in, 
158, 160. 

Louis XIV, 122. 

Lyon, Matthew, punished for sedi- 
tion, 114. 

Macaulay, Mrs. Catherine, 354. 

Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 129, 
214. 335. 338, 339- 34i. 344. 
352. 

Maclay, William, describes Wash- 
ington's manner, 74; criticises 
the federal leaders, 76 ; and 
Washington too, 77 ; describes 
attempt to use Senate as a privy 
council, 77 ; describes visit of 
Jefferson to Senate chamber, n. 
81 ; puff's John Adams for Vice- 
President, 86; on Washington's 
attention to Representatives, 135 ; 
on appeals to the aid of the 
Senate, 259; on senatorial de- 
portment, 265. 

Madison, James, inside politics of 
national movement, 42; democ- 
racy prone to dishonesty, 45; 
favored national negative on 
state legislation, 49 ; on the 
Senate, 53 ; need of legislative 
restraint, 54; public safety the 
supreme law, 55 ; on principles 
of government, 60 ; definition of 
a republic, 62; declines to confer 
with the Senate, 78 ; moves to 
reduce General St. Clair's salary, 



86; defends grant of power to 
Secretary of the Treasury, 87 ; a 
national politician, 101 ; Re- 
publican leader, 102; attacks 
foreign policy of Washington's 
administration, 107; one of the 
authors of The Federalist, no; 
carried executive authority to 
extreme lengths, 132; excuses 
party change of policy, 163 ; de- 
fends property qualifications of 
suffrage, 168 ; use of the veto 
power, 179; on control of legisla- 
tive assemblies, 237 ; on powers 
of House of Representatives, 
247 ; on the authority of the 
Senate, 257; subjected to dicta- 
tion by the Senate, 260; on se- 
curity against senatorial ascen- 
dency, 358. 

Maine, 7. 

Marshall, John, 120, 155, 168. 

Martin, Luther, 102. 

Maryland, 7, 40, 159, 160, 167. 

Mason, George, on popular inca- 
pacity, 45; on legislative delin- 
quency, 47 ; opposed to the con- 
stitution, n. 79. 

Massachusetts, 116, 152, 167, 191. 

McKean, Governor, 127. 

McKmley, William, 241. 

MacPherson, Senator, holds back 
the tariff bill, n. 272. 

Mercer, John Francis, 46. 

Michigan temporarily adopts dis- 
trict system of choosing presiden- 
tial electors, 160. 

Milton, John, on English political 
instability, 23; on a free com- 
monwealth, 27 ; on origin of Par- 
liament, 122. 

Mississippi, 116, 160. 

Missouri, 160, 166, 167, 190, 263. 

Monroe, James, President's patron- 
age used against De Witt Clinton, 
149 ; devises constitutional loop- 



404 



INDEX 



hole for internal improvements, 
164; letter to Wirt on Cabinet 
office, 166; establishes four-year 
term of appointments to office, 
170; use of the veto power, 179. 

Montesquieu, 29. 

Morris, Gouverneur, bow to govern 
mankind, 47 ; on the Senate, 53 ; 
on presidential duty, 275. 

Morris, Robert, 100. 

Morrissey, John, n. 240, 322. 

Morrison, W. R., presidential pat- 
ronage the support of party dis- 
cipline, 282. 

National Republican party, n. 160; 
and see Whig party. 

Nevada, disproportionate repre- 
sentation of, 273. 

New England, 7, 38, 55, 116. 

New Hampshire, 191. 

New Jersey, 6, 40, 152, 160. 

Newspapers in colonial period, 12; 
during Federalist period, 107; 
historical antecedents of, 109; 
intrude into politics, 109; colo- 
nial censorship of, no; a vehi- 
cle of revolutionary thought, 
no; attacks on Washington, 
in. 

New York, family control of poli- 
tics, 10; commercial relations, 
40; national political issues in- 
troduced, 143; democratic ten- 
dencies, 144; revolt against Con- 
gressional Caucus, 157; adopts 
general ticket system, 158 ; veto 
power in, 183, 184; inadequate 
representation in United States 
Senate, 273; Lexow committee 
disclosures, 321. 

North Carolina, 6, 116. 

North, Lord, 14. 

Ohio, 116, 191. 
Otis, James, 13. 



Otto, describes plans for a restora- 
tion of government, 42-44. 

Page, of Virginia, attacks proposed 
powers of Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, 87. 

Paine, Thomas, on maltreatment 
of loyalists, 9; advocates inde- 
pendence, 30. 

Pan-American conference, 224. 

Party organization, beginnings of, 
7 ; first effects of in Congress, 88 ; 
the bane of the Whig ideal, 90; 
Washington's condemnation of, 
93 ; repugnant to traditional sen- 
timent, 95; development of, 95; 
motives of, 101 ; shaped by cir- 
cumstances, 103; distinction 
between Federalists and Repub- 
licans, 104; as an English char- 
acteristic, 121; distinction be- 
tween party and faction, 127; 
conservative function of, 128, 
305 ; aristocratic ascendency hi, 
134; promoted by patronage, 
134; effect of national politics 
upon state politics, 141 ; laying 
hold upon state offices, 143; 
establishment of the machine, 
149; nationalizing influences of, 
150, 303 ; consolidated by pat- 
ronage, 171 ; rise of the conven- 
tion system, 197; development 
of the platform, 205 ; the agency 
of administrative control, 215, 
356; an organ of government, 
220 ; peculiarity of the American 
type, 294; has jurisdiction over 
congressional policy, 295 ; slight 
basis of its representative char- 
acter, 296; in reality a self-con- 
stituted factorship, 297; causes 
of its elaboration and complexity, 
298, 299; to some extent estab- 
lishes the public responsibility of 
the government, 300; the genesis 



INDEX 



405 



of boss rule, 301 ; the great factor 
of national unity, 306; assimi- 
lates immigrant peoples with the 
general mass of citizenship, 307; 
characteristics of the political 
class, 309, 310; more numerous 
than in England, 311; party 
expenditure, 313; party revenue, 
317-320; tribute from corpora- 
tions, 317; exploits public re- 
sources, 318 ; animus of faction 
conflicts, 319; partisanship and 
corruption antagonistic prin- 
ciples, 322 ; cost of party subsist- 
ence, 323; public service an 
incident of party activity, 325 ; 
not usually subject to specific 
responsibility, 327; apt to mis- 
conceive public opinion, 329; 
deference to popular folly, 329; 
platform characteristics, 330; 
cannot avoid presidential issues, 
331 ; the national convention the 
arbiter of party orthodoxy, 331 ; 
the consultative faculty of party 
the agency of political progress, 
333; English prototypes of Amer- 
ican political methods, 339-344, 
355; an administrative connec- 
tion between executive and legis- 
lative branches, 306; the ulti- 
mate type, 370. 

Patronage, use of, in English poli- 
tics, 134; during colonial period, 
135; by Washington, 136; under 
Adams' administration, 136; the 
spring of congressional activity, 
137 ; feeling against removals 
from office, 137 ; growing use of, 
in state politics, 147; corner-stone 
of national party organization, 
207; a constitutional source of 
executive influence, 276; an ele- 
ment of social stability, 305. 

Peel, Sir Robert, on public opinion, 
64. 



Penn, William, political induce- 
ments to immigrants, n. 70. 

Pennsylvania, commercial rela- 
tions, 40 ; revolts against Adams, 
137; political conditions in, 157; 
veto power in, 184. 

Philadelphia, the largest colonial 
city, 10. 

Pickering, Timothy, 136. 

Pierce, Franklin, 280. 

Pinckney, Charles, draught of the 
constitution, 176. 

Pitney, representative, cited, n. 
249. 

Pitt (Lord Chatham), 14, 91. 

Pitt, William, 138. 

Platform, the, see Party organiza- 
tion. 

Plumb, Senator, n. 272. 

Polk, James K., on the veto power, 
189; out-man ceuvres the Senate, 
256 ; mentioned, 279. 

Political Ideas, in the middle ages, 
18 ; attachment to kingship, 20 ; 
influences unfavorable to parlia- 
mentary institutions, 21; effect 
of theocratic principles, 26; in- 
fluence of Cromwellian Com- 
monwealth, 27 ; genesis of Whig 
doctrine, 29 ; repugnant to party 
spirit, 90; as set forth by Boling- 
broke, 90 ; as set forth by Burke, 
91 ; effects of party system upon, 
92; found expression in party 
organization, 103 ; divide the 
gentry, 106; as to the place of 
the public press, in; mythic 
tendency in, 129 ; averse to dis- 
turbance of official tenure, 137; 
diversity of, between North and 
South, 142; rotation in office, 
169; genesis of nullification doc- 
trine, 211 ; influence upon presi- 
dential functions, 214; operation 
in producing constitutional de- 
velopment, 219 ; reaction against 



406 



INDEX 



narrow views of national author- 
ity, 263 ; checked by the Missouri 
compromise, 264; American tol- 
erance and good humor, 304; 
impress a narrow meaning on 
the word "politics," 315; repug- 
nant to party organization, 322; 
the old Whig ideal still dominant, 
334; past English parallels of 
modern American ideas, 335— 
345; Burke's diagnosis, 345-349; 
the means of reform, 350 ; Ameri- 
can reform ideas the echo of ob- 
solete English ideas, 355. 
President of the United States, an 
embodiment of monarchical pre- 
rogative, 54, 55 ; royal style af- j 
fected, 72 ; but proves ineffectual, 
75; changes in official style in- 
troduced by Jefferson, 130; tends 
to become the headship of a 
bureaucracy, 165 ; extent of veto 
power, 185; acquires a repre- 
sentative character, 190; small 
vote tor previously, 190; trans- 
formation of the system of elec- 
tion, 208 ; the instrument of 
democratic forces, 214 ; defective 
accommodation to its new func- 
tions, 215 ; the organ of the na- 
tional will, 219; charged with 
the direction of national policy, 
2 7S- 2 77I ms duty like that of 
the British Premier, 275, 276; 
his patronage a constitutional 
means of influence, 276; Con- 
gress originally provided for 
presidential initiative, 278 ; po- 
litical issues always decided by 
executive policy, 279-283; ex- 
ecutive support essential to the 
accomplishment of party pur- 
poses, 282; presidential author- 
ity an inextinguishable factor, 
283; political conditions tend to 
aggrandize presidential author- 



ity, 284-286, 356; presidential 
authority compared with royal 
authority, 287 ; the vice-presi- 
dency a source of weakness, 
287; failure of constitutional 
checks upon presidential au- 
thority, 288, 289; constitutional 
defences against senatorial usur- 
pation, 289, 290; testimony of 
statesmen on President's powers, 
291 ; an elective kingship, 293 ; 
the national boss, 302 ; affords 
the only practical means of ex- 
tending popular rule, 356; ex- 
ecutive cooperation essential to 
successful attack upon the sen- 
atorial oligarchy, 361 ; constitu- 
tionally omnipotent in conjunc- 
tion with House of Representa- 
tives, 363 ; office comprehends 
incongruous functions, 368 ; will 
tend to assume an honorary and 
a ceremonial character, 369; po- 
litical functions eventually auto- 
matic, 373. 
Puritanism, contains a political 
virus, 38. 

Randall, Samuel ]., obstructs tariff 
reform, n. 234 ; predicts national 
bankruptcy from committee 
methods, 249. 

Randolph, Edmund, on the Con- 
tinental Congress, n. 36 ; prepares 
plan of national government, 49. 

Randolph, John, 147. 

Reed, Speaker, on inability of Con- 
gress to act without specific in- 
struction, 233 ; as a Capitol guide, 
n. 246. 

Removals from office, excused by 
Jefferson, 139 ; in state politics, 
142, 148, 149; rotation in office, 
169; systematized by Jackson, 
170; effect upon public service, 
171. 



INDEX 



407 



Representatives, House of, defeats 
efforts to confer titles on presi- 
dential office, 55 ; members not 
entitled to access to President, 
72; diversity in election of mem- 
bers, 156 ; district system made 
general, 160; originally the organ 
of public opinion, 190 ; its decline 
begins, 191 ; formerly the leading 
branch of government, 192; re- 
flects passing moods of the peo- 
ple, 194; development of its 
committee system, 226; its sys- 
tem of rules, 230; represents the 
districts, 239; continual change 
of membership, 241; "log-roll- 
ing," 242 ; not sensitive in regard 
to corporate privilege, 243 ; hum- 
ble attitude towards the Senate, 
2 54> 357. 359 '< power as regards 
treaties, 245 ; decline of its au- 
thority, 246 ; decay of its consti- 
tutional prerogatives, 247 ; its 
confessions of impotence, 248 ; 
loses control over the national 
budget, 249; arbitrary power of 
the Speaker, 251 ; legislative 
demeanor, 252; character of 
oratory, 253 ; party control of 
legislative procedure, 254; im- 
peachment process worthless as 
a constitutional check, 288 ; 
cannot refuse supplies, 289; ex- 
ecutive cooperation necessary 
for the restoration of its privi- 
leges, 361 ; omnipotent in con- 
junction with the President, 363 ; 
will then become the seat of 
administration, 367, 

Republican party / Jeffersonian), 
origin of, 105; Jefferson's ac- 
count of, 106 , invokes state rights, 
114; provides a constitutional 
outlet for disaffection, 126; con- 
trolled by the Congressional 
Caucus, 155 ; disruption of, 157 ; 



experiences a change of heart, 

162. 
Republican party (of our own 

times), 160. 
Richmond, Duke of, 15. 
Rockingham, Lord, 91. 
Rousseau, 17. 
Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 86. 

Senate, United States, constituted 
as an aristocracy, 53 ; attempts 
to attach titles to the presidency, 
55 ; failure of, as a privy council, 
78, 256 ; elections regulated by 
law, 160; censures Jackson and 
forced to expunge it, 173 ; begins 
public sessions, 193; no restric- 
tion upon debate, 222, 265 ; its 
committee system, 227 ; arbitrary 
control over legislation, 236; 
superior address in providing 
for itself, 245; not faithful to 
party obligation, 255 ; prompt 
development of its powers, 257 ; 
as compared with House of 
Lords, 258 ; legislative ascend- 
ency over the House, 259 ; usur- 
pation of presidential prerogative, 
260; originally inferior to House 
in political prestige, 261 ; be- 
comes a parliamentary forum, 
262; foundations of its dignity, 
263; a school of political educa- 
tion for the nation, 264 ; aug- 
mentation of authority, 266; 
usurps the appointing power, 
267 ; forced to surrender control 
over removals, 268 ; change of 
character, 269 ; uses its privileges 
for legislative extortion. 270 ; tone 
of proceedings, 271; methods of 
legislation, 272; misrepresenta- 
tive composition, 273; declining 
in public respect. 274; its confir- 
mation of appointments may be 
dispensed with, 290; the rule of 



4o8 



INDEX 



an oligarchy, 357 ; a state sover- 
eignty revival, 361 ; how to reform 
the Senate, 363. 

Seward, Secretary of State, calls the 
President an elective king, 291. 

Shays' Rebellion causes public 
alarm, 55. 

Shelburne, Lord, 92, 337. 

Sherman, John, Secretary of the 
Treasury, 86 ; on President's dis- 
cretionary authority over appro- 
priations, 185 ; on the issue 
between President Johnson and 
Congress, 281 ; cause of enact- 
ment of silver bullion purchase 
bill, 283 ; establishes gold re- 
serve fund, 285. 

Sherman, Roger, anti-democratic 
principles, 45. 

Smith, Robert, Secretary of the 
Navy, 290. 

South American republics, 69. 

South Carolina, assembly votes 
money to an English political 
society, 7; legislature appoints 
presidential electors, 116, 159. 

Speaker, the, original conception 
of, 135 ; appoints House com- 
mittees, n. 227; determines char- 
acter of legislation by committee 
appointments, 234 ; his negative 
upon legislation, 251 ; control of 
legislative procedure, 255 ; his 
power over opportunities of leg- 
islation, 357 ; will eventually be 
taken over by the administration, 
366. 

Spencer, Herbert, on ultimate type 
of government, n. 373. 

Stamp Act, passage of, 13. 

State sovereignty invoked as a re- 
source of opposition, 116. 

Stewart, Senator, on national legis- 
lation, 273. 

Story, Justice, on dangers from 
lack of direct association of the 



executive department with legis- 
lative proceedings, 394-396. 

Suffrage, see Elective franchise. 

Sweden, revolution in, 22. 

Swift, Jonathan, 109. 

Taine on source of absolutism in 
France, 21. 

Talleyrand, 113, 325. 

Tammany Hall, 145, 201, 297. 

Taney, Roger B., acted as Secre- 
tary of the Treasury without con- 
firmation, 290. 

Tilden, Samuel J., 316. 

Trevelyan, George Otto, 335, 336. 

Turgot, criticism upon American 
constitutions, 35. 

Tyler, John, his vetoes, 182, 189, 279. 

United States, beginnings of na- 
tionality, 13 ; true cause of the 
Revolution, 31 ; Confederation 
period, 36-44; federal structure 
of nation, 57 ; government begins 
as a class rule, 59; a monarchi- 
cal republic, 61 ; first occasion 
of official reference to it as a re- 
public, n. 62; political induce- 
ments to immigration, 69; breach 
between society and politics, 70 ; 
government patterned after Eng- 
land, 72 ; foundations laid by 
" log-rolling," 87 ; variety of po- 
litical conditions, 150; gradually 
brought into national conformity, 
159, 160; political results of 
growth of population, 168; its 
political history shaped by exec- 
utive policy, 279; its humanistic 
r61e, 380. 

Van Buren, Martin, 203, 205, 279. 

Vermont adopts general ticket 
system, 158. 

Vest, Senator, on legislative black- 
mail, n. 270. 



INDEX 



409 



Veto, by Madison, 164; by Mon- 
roe, 164; history of, in the con- 
stitution, 175; by Jackson, 180; 
public agitation against, 181 ; by 
Tyler, 182; a democratic prin- 
ciple, 182 ; in the state constitu- 
tions, 183; applies to items of 
bills, 185; as compared with 
royal negative in England, 186, 
214; Polk's view of, 189; inef- 
fectual against " log-rolling " 
combinations, 250. 

Virginia, House of Burgesses, 8 ; 
commercial negotiations with 
Maryland, 40; plan of national 
government, 48; slow to make 
partisan removals from office, 
142; presidential dynasty, 146; 
limitations on elective franchise, 
168. 

Virginia resolutions framed by 
Madison, 115. 

Voltaire on royal authority, 22. 

Voorhees, Senator, confesses in- 
capability of Congress, 285. 

Voting methods in the colonies, 6, 7. 

Walpole, Sir Robert, 13, 341, 342. 

War of Independence, its political 
side, 95 et seq. 

Warville, Brissot de, cited, 4. 

Washington, George, election 
liquor bill, 5; promotes move- 
ment for a more perfect union, 
40; presided over constitutional 
convention, n. 51 ; criticises use of 



word "republic," n. 62; his pres- 
idential deportment, 72; his dis- 
gust with official annoyances, 
74, 75 ; visits Senate to advise 
with it, 77 ; Maclay's opinion of, 
j-j; his farewell address, 93; on 
behavior of Continental Con- 
gress, 96; cabal against him, 
97 ; hindered by congressional 
mismanagement, 98 ;■ on party 
spirit, 112; pleased by Judge 
Addison's charges, 113; ap- 
proves the alien and sedition 
laws, 114; relations with John 
Adams, 118; use of patronage, 
136, 277 ; a nomination rejected 
by the Senate, 260. 

Webster, Daniel, on removals from 
office, 142; on executive en- 
croachments, 180. 

Whigs, English, relation to Ameri- 
can Whigs, 14-16; methods of 
agitation, 107, 115. 

Whig party, a coalition of an + i- 
Jackson factions, 172; attitude 
towards the veto power, 183; 
averse to formal declarations of 
principles, 205. 

Wilkes, John, 8, 107, 115. 

William the Conqueror, 122. 

Wirt, William, Jefferson's letter to, 
133; consults Monroe on tenure 
of Cabinet office, 166; men- 
tioned, 203. 

Woodbury, Levi, on President's 
veto power, 187. 



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